Tory MP Enoch Powell once famously observed that “power devolved is power retained”.
He was, of course, correct.
Powell pushed the self-destruct button on a career as a potential future leader of the Conservative Party with his infamous “rivers of blood” speech in April 1968.
Like all racists he thought he was being reasonable:
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’. That tragic and intractable phenomenon which we watch with horror on the other side of the Atlantic but which there is interwoven with the history and existence of the States itself, is coming upon us here by our own volition and our own neglect. Indeed, it has all but come. In numerical terms, it will be of American proportions long before the end of the 20th century. Only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal.
The Ulster Unionist party would later bring him in from the cold and he re-entered Westminster as the member for South Down.
Enoch Powell was born in 1912 when the British Empire was still a thing.
Moreover, he was in the British government during the Suez Crisis in 1956.
His generation knew what it was like to have an empire and then to lose it.
Consequently, his view of where power really resides is worth re-visiting.
Here in Ireland, we just had the unedifying spectacle of Irish politicians swearing the loyal oath to Frau Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
As well as bending the knee to the current incumbent on the British throne Westminister MPs also swear that they will bear true allegiance to her heirs and successors.
That includes this guy.
Therefore, adding a feeble letter of complaint doesn’t take away from the fact that swearing an oath of allegiance to the British Monarch is rather indelible.
Like death and pregnancy, there are no half measures.
Today, Scotland’s First Minister asked the Queen’s Government for permission to hold a second independence referendum.
Of course, there is an element of political theatre in this as Ms Surgeon knows that the Boris will refuse it.
For the avoidance of doubt, this will allow her to indulge in consequence-free grandstanding.
Politicians love that stuff…
I recently gamed this out with an old SNP pal.
We’ve known each other since the mid-1980s.
As I led him through the various detours in all of the possible scenarios we kept bumping into the inconvenient truth that Westminster is sovereign.
Moreover, for as long as the SNP confers legitimacy on that legislature then they’re caught and Boris knows it.
Like Claire Hanna of the SDLP Ms Sturgeon’s SNP MPs attend Westminster and in doing so they to swear allegiance to the British Monarch.
As a Republican, I find this very strange behaviour from those who claim that they’re about the business of genuinely seceding from the United Kingdom.
Methinks that they rather like the Westminster salary and perks despite their ranty grandstanding protestations.
I don’t believe what they say.
However, I will believe what they do.
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I speak the Gaelic!
If you want to know we are in the glorious county of Aintrim !!xxxx
I believe totally MOrrrrrRE, aka Christy,The fella aka MaaaCowgan, Hills O Donegal aka Paul Brady By the way my Uncle taught Frank Ryan the Classics ,allso the firsr school in Ireland to teach Irish!
CHR
I agree Donald Trump is an Ultra Nationalist and Nicola Sturgeon is the Scottish equivalent. Both target the working class.
Devolution has failed in numerous areas. SNP cannot competently run devolved powers properly never mind an on its own Indy Scotland.
If another IndyRef is ever held, Will SNP give assurances on a defeat such as disbanding, handing some devolved powers back to London, including budgets?
Even if Scotland were the richest partner in the UK instead of a massive taker, we should remain in the uk and share that wealth with our fellow citizens. It’s about supporting each other and not selfish nationalist ideas.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nhs-constitution-for-england
https://www.nhsinform.scot/care-support-and-rights/health-rights/patients-charter/the-charter-of-patient-rights-and-responsibilities
Spot the glaring differences and removal of Scots vital protections. Sturgeon has handed over the entire population as drug company trialists.
The first obvious difference is the English have a legal NHS “Constitution” whereas Scots have a mere NHS “Charter”.
No protections at all. It’s an open invite for medical researchers and big pharma to do as they please with the Scots working classes.
Beatson (Glasgow University) and their unlawful secrecy agreements (gagging orders) on patient (victim) families and their brutal research approaches are Sturgeon’s Achilles heel. Including the top secret Glasgow top security human guinea pig facility for trials on the incurables. Especially extreme side effect pain trials where ankles and wrists are strapped down.
Sturgeon, Glasgow University Alumnus, is all in on their sins.
https://youtu.be/GjVJI0hJQ8o anyone here this today.
Too many can’t see the wood for the trees, An Independent Scotland wouldn’t necessarily have the SNP in government. After Independence there would be elections and the party the people vote for ( unlike now where England gets the government they want and to hell with Scotland, Wales and NI ). Labour ( a true Scottish Labour and not a branch office ) could win and take control. God forbid the Tories could even win!
agreed on the demise of nationalists and the migration to a classical political ‘environment’ post a referendum and
You are Spot on .. on that point
.. but the underlying dire economic dynamics of our country won’t change
Much as I beat on the SNP for their incompetence in most areas and lack of a plan for the economy Labour before them in Scotland were as bad
We like the north east and west and parts of the midlands are post industrial societies for the time being dependent on the economic monster that is wider London
We have to be self sufficient first to be independent
Not the other way around
Cheers
This is a pathetic position. Vote for SNP because you don’t rate them and then you can get Labour in to run Scotland because SNP are crap at running it.
Any dirty little strategy to get voters for SNP.
How about don’t vote snp and vote Labour instead to run Scotland?
The Conservatives passed by 124 votes today, including 6 Labour votes, to approve the renegotiated Bono’s Brexit deal. Get used to it.
Get used to SNP Lies, trickery and rhetoric simply being ignored.
As SNP blow the annual budget inefficiently on incompetence, pet projects, Nationalist preferred Entrepreneurs and White Elephants, the £14 billion UK government contribution should be managed by The Scotland Office, targeting the funding efficiently and professionally where needed. It’s UK money after all. Handing it over to Nats has been a huge error. They prop up Nat cronyism jobs in NGOs and Councils with UK funding for starters. SNP Controlled councils are packed with snp cronies in the jobs.
Let’s beef up the Scotland Office with more Staffers, professional administrators and carry out studies into where to target that £14BN funding properly. A National Cancer Centre in Edinburgh to take over from Sturgeon’s pet Glasgow Uni Beatson hard core Researchers would be a good start. Those C**** treat people as lab rats.
What a sad excuse for a human being you are ! What makes some people bend over and willingly take it up their Jacksie in perpertuamfrom their colonial masters.?
Play the ball please…
Johnson must wake up every morning wondering how the hell did I get to be Prime Minister.
From the worst Foreign Secretary in history to top dog. He must think it’s all a dream.
David Cameron has a lot to answer for.
When we leave the UK without a deal next December it will be job done for Boris and his merry band.
Shame on the Labour Party for leaving the country without a credible opposition.
I have had the same suspicion for a while the SNP will spend the next 5 years talking a good game while taking the fat pay packet, they are quite happy with the current set up of behaving like slightly disruptive schoolchildren in Westminster while their boss runs a glorified regional council in Holyrood
SNP MPs were elected to take up their seats by their electorate. To contribute in Westminster. If they don’t do that then they are breaking that pre election understanding.
Charlatans promise one thing and then when elected do another. Which wasn’t promised. Disregarding their electorate. Labour suffered their scolding for that.
They’re a meaningless minority opposition group anyway. They represent only 45% of Scots who voted. A portion of which was a BREXIT one off protest vote.
If they couldn’t swing it with BREXIT they won’t swing it with anything. Even though Independence destroys Scotland economically anyway.
Nats have the retention of the Monarchy in an Indy Scotland in their manifesto. You seem to erroneously suggest otherwise re the oath. Or do you allude to more SNP lies?
There are two obvious truths in Scottish politics; Nationalists are in a perpetual minority and can not secure independence.
And, no acting up trickery, disobedience, minority driven initiatives will upturn democracy and deliver independence either. It never worked in NI and it won’t work in Scotland.
The rebel rebel attitude achieves nowt. Spitting the dummy because you don’t have a majority isn’t the answer. There is no answer. We are in the Union. Period.
Sturgeon and her ilk need to get used to the idea they are perpetual protesters. Nothing more. They do, however, hold Scotland back. Scotland suffers badly through these incompetents running the country; from the NHS to education, to ferry construction to bent politicians to lies to empty unopened hospitals to infectious hospitals to budget mismanagement to appalling foreign relations to building schools on poisoned land to cancer scandals to no Green jobs as promised (offshore wind farms) to underfunded policing and crumbling buildings, ….
Donald Trump is an Ultra USA Nationalist. Sturgeon is the Scottish same. A power hungry, grand egotist, controlling, truth skewing, deceiver of the working classes.
Boris JOHNSTON is building 14 new hospitals in England and Wales and raising nurses numbers by 50,000. Lets get the Scottish NHS back into the UK NHS for starters. Patients need protections that SNP have watered down in Scotland. Scots patients are being exploited by ruthless researchers which isn’t allowed in England rather than being directed onto approved safe standard of care drugs.
Excellent!
Absolutely spot on the money!….and all of that on top of a systemic annual deficit of billions which post the brigadoon independence will require either constant unfundable increases in national debt to the point of bankruptcy and/or brutal cuts in services ie shutting schools and hospitals all over
Andrew Neil destroyed the SNPs so called ‘economic’ advisor on this very topic a few weeks ago . They have no clue how to resolve the 7% annual deficit.
Most of their supporters don’t even know the problem exists
Last point to remember their 45% vote share is on a drop in turnout to 68% in other words 70% of Scots eligible to vote DID NOT vote for indeyref 2
Her numbers are down significantly from 2014
She has no mandate and she knows it .
If you and Boris are so sure the people of Scotland don’t want Indy, then why not allow a referendum? The SNP made it clear that significant change would result in calls for another vote, and Brexit is that change. Personally think the change was when they conned many with the indy lite deal. But that aside why not allow the vote or are the Unionist running scared as they know many are now calling for Indy.
We had a referendumb for a generation. SNP were sad bad losers. As the independence referendumb was answered why didn’t snp disband and go away? There’s no point to snp anymore.
Scots don’t want independence.
We exercised our sovereign independence to confirm our place in the Union.
We’ve had snp running Hollyrood since May 2007. It’s a 13 year shambles. We need more convergence with rUK and not divergence. Re-unite the NHS, align our uk taxation -Scots are the highest taxed citizens in uk thanks to snp.
The exodus of brains and wealth from an Indy Scotland would be massive. Stick your Freedumb and your referendumb up yir bum.
You talk a whole lot of narrow minded nonsense politically and all I can say is that you are in for a rude awakening when Indy comes! Not all Scots are willing to sit and doff their cap to Westminster and be screwed by them year after year. Have you no spine to be able to get off your knees and actually have Scots decide their economic and social future for themselves.
Yeah let’s just dream of brigadoon and everything will be fine.
SNP have Absolutely no clue how to manage the country and no strategy other than throwing rocks at the Tories and giving out freebies to create the illusion of progress
The Labour Party leaders who left Donald Dewar on his own with a bunch of pygmies at Holyrood are the criminals who allowed Salmond to run riot and steal their electorate in just one generation . Now Scotland is knackered with An unelectable Labour Party and a bunch of nationalist zealots who couldn’t run a ménage never mind a country
In a Union, right,where are all the ship building jobs promised? Why is our infrastructure ignored while London get cross rail, high speed to Birmingham and motorways, to mention but a few areas where Scotland is second rate to England? We even have to put up with second hand rail carriages.
England doesn’t want an Indy Scotland because without our wealth of natural resources, England would be worse off than what many claim Scotland would be.
We are bailed out billions every year !..perhaps if wee Nicola started to behave like a grown up politician rather than throwing freebies around like a drunken sailor to retain and con her electorate we can start to grow an economy and also build more infrastructure as you point out
The SNP can’t name a single tangible initiative that will bridge the economic gap as Andrew Neil proved.
Yeah SNP are building all the ships at Fergusson Marine.
Nobody should worry though, Dereck McKay (University dropout) is running the financials. Is that a causal factor?
My goodness I didn’t realise how many Tories read this site, has no one told you how much better the Scottish NHS is performing than NHS England,Any one not accepting how successful Scotland could be economically as an independent country isn’t paying attention or is reading the unionist media too much.How possibly could a country with a population of 5million and rich in renewable energy,oil,gas and also rich in agriculture land,fishing grounds and is the only country within the UK that exports more than it imports couldn’t just survive as a independent but would thrive with independence .
Scotland will be independent in the future the only question is when,as a 75 year old guy I hope it is sooner rather than later, I think it will be a Photo finish between a united Ireland and an independent Scotland both will happen within the next 20 years .
Lifetime Labour voter mon ami!
Unelectable At present with a weak pacifist Marxist who was never going to be PM and a party tragically controlled by a lunatic fringe. Years ahead in the wilderness having handed our electorate over to the SNP up here
The only good news is 70% of the eligible voters didn’t vote for the SNP ie 32% didn’t vote and 38% voted against them
She only has 30% behind her
Thankfully Boris got a strong majority and will rightfully tell the Nationalists to come back in 20 years
I think you should seriously reconsider your thoughts and comment on the NHS . It is an unmitigated disaster on almost every front and she all but acknowledged it when Andrew Neil eviscerated her a few weeks ago . Embarrassing!
Scotland economy and balance of payments is and will be a disaster fact! 7 % deficit every single year . Would be bankrupt in less than 5 years and paying mega interest rates on the bonds as the national debt would escalate…that’s assuming some institutions somewhere would be insane enough to fund the debt
The 32% who never voted at election are in my opinion for the Snp and are quite happy with them running the show.
Brigadoon Scotch mist.
A lifetime Labour voter who is glad Johnston got a big majority that says it all.
Love it when you say charlatans promise one thing and when elected do another. You later mention Johnston is building 14 new hospitals and increasing nurse numbers by 50 000. He actually claimed 40 new hospitals but its doesn’t matter cause, guess what, neither is happening. Charlatan right enough.
The 50,000 nurses has been exposed as a lie, Scottish NHS back in UK NHS, for real? Been outperforming English NHS for years. You talk of the working classes, something you are not. We have been spared many draconian tory measures by our devolved parliament but not enough for the far right! You are a traitor to your land of birth!
Tell me, which state does the salary of Sinn Fein MLAs come from? Furthermore, why do Sinn Fein take expenses from the British state?
https://fullfact.org/news/sinn-fein-salaries/
The SNP participate in Westminster because it increases the functionality of the party to achieve the best outcomes for Scotland. The SNP have shown that their dedication to independence remains entirely unshaken. It’s perfectly true that the SNP has always suffered from a streak of circumspection that can be frustrating to separatists, but Sturgeon played a blinder. The most successful politician across these islands without a doubt and a model of ‘the modern nationalist’.
I used to believe that the SNP had become far too comfortable at Westminster, but recent endeavours would hugely undermine that. If Boris Johnson acts like a tyrant and denies the ultimate right of self-determination to Scots, it will only further our cause. If he steps aside and allows not our ‘request’ but our rightful demand’ for a Section 30 order, we have the chance to fight for our future unchained by the British Union against the backdrop of what seems to be a thousand year Tory reich. It’s a win-win.
Tha an ùine ann a-nis
Phil; At the moment, the only democratic method of achieving Independence is to partake in the theater of the absurd that WM is. That means, at least for the moment, having to swear allegiance and also having to put up with being ridiculed and insulted. The next steps will be in the courts where will see if there is any reality to the 1707 Act of Union being that – a union.
I hear what you are saying about the perception of participating in WM. But there is no shame or lack of value in trying to effect change peacefully! What would you have them do instead?
SNP have in their manifesto the retention of the monarch as head of state. So is that a lie to not alienate monarchists in Scotland until after a notional Indy, when the monarch will be dumped and to hell with Scottish monarchists? Another group duped by SNP? All Nationalist posts on here would appear to confirm this as true.
Many MPs, including English ones, pledge allegiance with their fingers crossed. It seems to me to be the lesser of two evils – to make a pledge you don’t really believe in return for your constituents having a voice and a vote in their future. Personally, I wish the Shinners would have held their noses, made the pledge and sent the Tories and Brexit packing in the last Parliament – particularly since Sinn Fein accepts the current status of Northern Ireland within the UK as part of the Good Friday Agreement. By all means campaign for a united Ireland, but also deal with the reality of being in the UK in the meantime.
I know you won’t agree with this – and that’s OK. That’s democracy. But I do think the people of South Belfast are lucky to have a representative who is as passionate, inclusive and decent as Claire Hanna.
Phil: I’m surprised any “pal” of yours that was in the Nats in the ‘80s wasn’t expelled! All mine were…..! They can’t have been trying hard enough!😂✊️☘️🏴
He’s a party loyalist for sure.
He has privately conceded to me that he isn’t proud of the role he played in expelling the 79 Group.
For once, someone quoting the so-called “rivers of blood” speech actually quotes the proper words used. At no point did he ever use those words. The quote begins, “Like the Roman..” At this point we are, immediately entering the world of metaphor and simile, viz. figures of speech. Anyone with even the faintest knowledge of the classical oeuvre knows we are entering the Aeniad and the reference is to the Scylla with allegory or imagery. Professor Mary Beard – no right wing apologist – is on record as saying he was using a metaphor (akin, in my view to that famous phrase ‘blood,sweat and tears’). a metaphor wasted in my view. Had he taken the easier way and merely used Latin, as Boris Johnson is so won’t to do, none would have noticed it then, nor even remember the speech today.
Sicut Scylla, video Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine
Since we are in Grecian prophecy mode, I would like to add that In Aristophanes’ 414 BC drama, “The Birds”, Pisthetaerus, persuades the world’s birds to create a new city in the sky to be named Nubicuculia or Cloud Cuckoo Land thereby gaining control over all communications between men and gods. Given our dependency on satellites and the coming battle to control the skies we may already be living there.
Lately I keep thinking about this…
https://zorbear.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/parents.gif
‘Grandstanding’ indeed,we’d be better off wae Frank Bough,who was once tagged as ‘the most unassailable performer on British television’
‘The Boris’ has now,without doubt,taken charge of that moniker.
Sláinte 🍺
enti1967: is that the same Frank Bough that was accused of taking class A drugs with some hookers in a London brothel?
He admitted his guilt and the BBC bosses fired him immediately, because the BBC is squeaky clean and couldn’t possibly be associated with such scandalous behaviour.
He wasn’t bullet proof like Jimmy Savile.
The very man!
Deery deery me 😔
Lucky sinn Fein don’t take their salaries then and claim the expenses. That would be hypocritical. Oh wait!
Sinn Féin MPs do NOT take their salaries.
Not strictly true. Sinn Fein Mp are denied their salaries as they do not take their seats.
The British government refuses to pay Sinn Féin MPs our salaries and other grants which all other Westminster MPs receive.
They don’t even “not take their seats”. They are denied because they refuse to take any oath or make any sort of allegiance to the Crown; quite rightly in my opinion.
If they don’t work for it they don’t deserve it.
Sinn Fein do. It goes into a pot
Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble!
Sorry checked it out, they don’t but take expenses
He is accurate ‘though.
The BBC are a feckin’ law unto themselves.