Ed sent me this article a couple of days ago. It’s not short, but it’s worth a read and I’d be really interested in your comments.
Today the British Government has debated its Internal Market Bill, which becomes more frightening with every comment you read on it, in its parliament in England.
I couldn’t watch the debate, but I’ve seen some highlights on social media.
Mr Johnson was probably at the most pathetic I’ve ever seen him, as Ed Miliband tore into him “He didn’t read the protocol, he hasn’t read the Bill, he doesn’t know his stuff”, and left him looking shattered. Certainly one of Miliband’s finer moments, which is more than can be said of Johnson.
It appears, from my reading (not that the UK parliament made a lot of this, it being more concerned with the humiliation or not of their glorious union as it is held up to ridicule across world) that our devolution will be diluted to the point where it might be said to be pointless.
As Michael Grey @GreyInGlasgow pointed out:
Clause 46 of the Internal Market Bill gives the Tory Government powers over Scottish health, education, justice, transport, culture, sport, housing, & economic development. It is a direct attack on the Scottish Parliament, as endorsed by 74% of Scots in 1997. We need independence.
It will give the UK government in their large headquarters in our capital, a vast range of powers over devolved matters. Powers that we can assume that they will use to their advantage, and to thwart the policies of the government we elected. Because as sure as sure can be, we didn’t vote for them.
Still, I hope that this nonsense and what follows in January (remember what is now the likely outcome of Brexit) may be the impetus we need to get started on another push for independence.
It certainly never hurts to sit back quietly and watch your “enemy” as he kicks his own backside all over the field of battle and that for sure is what they are doing.
And, as if on cue, one of my ultra unionist neighbours who recently admitted to me “I don’t like her policies, but I admit Nicola Sturgeon has played a blinder over Covid and I’m glad I live in Scotland and not England” today went further and declared herself for independence.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
That picture looks like a clone, not the real boris.
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What is the real Do… I mean Boris?
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The headline says it all really. Back to being controlled by a english dictator.
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Rumour circulating that the reason Dross is so confident that he will be the next FM is because he knows that Boris intends to set aside the results of the next Scottish Parliament elections and will install Dross.
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Normally I’d have laughed at that…
Now? Well I still think it’s fantastical, but then I look at the mad eyes of Cummings and the bleary eyes of Gove … not to mention the privileged monocled eye of Rees Mogg… and I hear what they are doing and I think… yeah, well, maybe not exactly that, but a fiddle is possible if not probable, given the importance of the SNP/Greens not getting a majority… and the likelihood that they will.
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Craig Murray makes very revealing comment and analysis. He wrote almost a yea ago that Johnson would sign the Withdrawal Agreement as a political convenience with every intention of breaking it when expedience would inevitably arise again. So much so that he first sought legal advice on when it could arguably bepermissible to break the treaty. The agreement was negotiated and signed in bad faith from the beginning, with every intention of departing from it when the time came to do so.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
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Yes, Craig was a high flier in the FCO until he blew the whistle on UK involvement in torture. He still has contacts there so we should pay attention when he comments on these matters.
The UK has been taken over by gangsters. What is their ultimate aim? A hard BREXIT will destroy the economy, even without COVID19. Is it so fund managers can make a killing? Is it so US health companies can take over the NHS? Is it so US farmers can dump their produce on us?
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It’s a bit of all of these things.
It’s also because the right wing press demonised the EU for a long time and created a massive amount of distrust in the population.
Johnson won a good victory on the back of that distrust, which over the campaign had turned to hatred in so many cases.
I think that the Goves and Raabs and Moggs of the Tory party are following Cummings to the freest of free markets… and of course the very rich seem to be set to make a lot of money.
We are going to have to look at stockpiling tins and packets for the period after the new year.
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Aye… He has contacts in the FCO, so I guess he has a better idea of what’s going on than I do.
And who can fathom the minds of Cummings. Rabb and Johnson?
I think that they are stirring up more problem within their own party, which after Brexit is “done” in whatever manner, will fester and explode.
People might say that the SNP will do the same thing but I have always thought that the likelihood is that the SNP would do that anyway after independence. I never imagined the Tories splitting, but now I do… unless after Johnson goes, they find a less extremist leader.
Not unreasonably a lot of Scotland is raging about this. Over 70% voted for devolution along the Blair lines. In order to accommodate the needs of future (possible) trade deals that Scotland never wanted or needed and didn’t vote for, it looks like our devolution is being ripped apart. The will of the people? Only when it suits the Tory nutters.
I’ve seen a lot of dissent coming from Wales too.
I wonder, when it is discussed in the Scottish parliament, who will vote for what…
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They disgust me yes the Torys
Much as I love 💕 union I find myself walking 🚶♀️ further away
Every time the Torys break the law or do evil 😈 to feed people
But being a weak willed yoon find myself slowing walking back to the Union .
But one day and that day given the vile Johnsonits capacity for base criminality i going to walk so far away from our union I will never walk back.
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Well, Niko, your journey will take it where it takes you.
I’ve not ever found it easy to trust any Tory, but THIS bunch of Tories are beyond my worst nightmares of them.
Interestingly there are journalists who predict that Johnson will go in January… which leaves Rabb or the evil goblin, Sniffer Gove to be Cummings’ puppet.
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Prédictive text pain in the erse
How Robby Burns would of coped I’ll never knew or Shakespeare (wonder how Conan manages ?engages brain
Perhaps )
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Comparing me to Burns and Shakespeare Niko? I’m flattered.
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Rabbie just disabled the predictive text… I know this because he told me personally!!!!
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John Stuart Mill,
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
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The good men and women of Munguin’s Republic are on it.
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Between the Internal Markets Bill, and the B.B.C pulling the plug on Nicola, to borrow a famous line from a movie, ” I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more”.
After nearly seventy years of being aware of wanting Scottish Independence, my parents explained to me in 1951 the covenant they were signing was to try to get Home Rule for Scotland, I’ve had enough of this nonsense. My patience has run out, and while I am aware of the difficulties posed by the pandemic, we must make every effort in the very near future to hold a referendum, achieve our independence, and run our own affairs, completely.
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Not about independence and lacking a bit in lyrics, but the same emotion is there.
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Just found out that L.B.J left the chamber before Ian Blackford got up to speak in the Commons yesterday. That is merely one example of the contempt we are held in by the Tories.
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I read that, Alex.
I couldn’t make up my mind whether it was because Miliband had wiped the floor with him and dunked him in a bucket of disinfectant a few times, or whether it was becasue he couldn’t be bothered listening to some Jock banging on about the powers of the Scottish government.
Question is, who do we want making decisions … Nicola and her Cabinet and then Holyrood… or Alistair Jack and his deputy, so utterly unmemorable that I’ve forgotten who he is, all controlled by Dominic Cummings, Michael Gove and de Pfeffel.
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Both. Even if Ed hadn’t wiped the floor with him he would have left. They always do when any SNP MP stands up to speak.
It’s beginning to feel a bit like Scotland free or a desert time.
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Whatever they teach at Eton, it most assuredly isn’t manners.
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My faith in the Westminster regime has been reaffirmed, or rather, it has gone from zero into negative numbers. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we Scots wake up from our collective New Year’s hangover to find that the Westminster regime has suspended the Scottish Parliament altogether, imposed direct rule, and is introducing legislation to impose English law on us along with everything else.
Not quite the worst-case scenario: cancellation of the May elections (on spurious grounds that we haven’t got the COVID pandemic under control here in Scotland and need Westminster to run our response to it, maybe).
They’re simply out of control. I asked Cassandra what she thought about it, but she just waved me away and continued to make serious inroads into her Bunnahabhain.
Reminder to self: must buy more toilet roll.
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Quite. If the msm did it’s job reporting this when indy support would be through the roof. I’m not sure if they will be as blatant as shutting it down. But by God at a minimum it will become the parish council Blair always wanted it to be.
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Maybe best buy more Bunnahabhain if Old Cassie’s got stuck in aboot it. Munguin purchases by the case…
Well, I think we are in uncharted territory at the moment.
If Alistair Jack has that kind of power from January 1, I trust nothing after that.
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2014 Independence vote we are supposed to respect, Brexit vote we we are supposed to respect, Sewell convention we were supposed to respect and believe, international treaties we are supposed to respect, devolution vote we are supposed to respect/ignore, mmm.
The only way for Scotland and its people to earn respect is to withdraw from the illegal treaty of the union, that Westminster has disrespected, they have inextricable altered its original context and acts, more recently in the last century than in the previous 200 years. That simply did not apply to us in the first place, If we are supposed to follow legal laws and facts, let us start by questioning what is fact,
Why have we not gone over the legalities of the treaty of the union in a more thorough manner.
It is wrote down in recorded history that the nation of Scotland did not agree with the treaty of the union and rebelled against it.
It is wrote down in recorded history the names of the people who took England’s financial bribes, to encourage them to sign that treaty.
These are serious questions.
1) Did the sovereign people and nation of Scotland appoint and support the signatories of Scotland’s side of the treaty? NO.
2) were the sovereign people of Scotland informed and kept up to date with regard to an approaching treaty with England? NO.
3) Were the sovereign people and nation of Scotland presented with a referendum or vote to join the kingdom of Scotland to the kingdom of England with a treaty of the union? NO
4). what legal documents and papers or receipts in 1707 were provided to England or the people of Scotland that the sovereign people in Scotland had become Bought slaves and at what date? NONE.
5). what legal documents papers or receipts were provided as evidence to England or the sovereign people in Scotland that the signatories of Scotland had officially bought the sovereign people’s land from them? NONE.
6) Were the sovereign people of Scotland kept well informed on a proposed treaty between Scotland and England? NO.
Was the sovereign people in the nation of Scotland asked for its vote in the final decision.NO.
7) Were the sovereign people of Scotland informed that if treaty of union was signed by them, it would take away their right to choose their monarch, if they should want one? NO.
8) Were the sovereign people in Scotland informed that the right to choose their own government would be decided by a new parliament south of the Scottish border in advance of any treaty being signed? NO.
It appears to me that the 1707 treaty of union is now the longest running scam in British history of mega proportions.
The sovereign Scottish people had nothing to do with the signing or agreeing to the treaty of the union between Scotland and England, they were not kept informed and they did not have a vote on it and it is wrote down in history,
The Scottish nation are not joined to England by a treaty,
However officially it is documented that the people whom did sign, signed independently of the sovereign people of Scotland and received payments for their own personal salvage and land.
They would officially need to provide documents that they had officially bought their land from the sovereign people of Scotland,
The sovereignty of Scotland, its nation , its people, is still intact legally,
What was sold and signed for in the treaty of the union, and that England gained was what the self appointed elite in Scotland owned, at that time ,they sold and signed away themselves only.
NOT SCOTLAND. NOT ITS PEOPLE, WE OFFICIALLY AND LEGALLY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIGGEST SCAM THAT SUPPOSEDLY CREATED THE UK.
If we are supposed to respect the law, referendums and votes, then the accuracy and truth is that the actual treaty of the union does not exist in our names, the sovereign names of the nation of Scotland, but does for the Ogilvys . Erskines, Douglas,s. Melville’s , Gordon’s and all their ilk that signed it. They sold to England only their own,
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‘Tis a shame that the rioting that followed the sell out in 1707 didn’t blow up into a full scale revolution. I wonder what stopped it?
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I guess, Douglas, it was force.
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Yep, James. Bought and sold for English gold (and land and titles, coz these types like their titles.
Concessions made to the educated classes… law was to remain separate, judges and lawyers didn’t want to have to learn new law; the church (VERY much more powerful back then) was to remain quite separate and of course the church had much to do with education.
The ordinary people didn’t matter and were not consulted.
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The Westminster junta simply cannot allow the next Scottish election to take place because they know that will be the end of their union.
The union was forced upon Scotland by England and only whilst the empire provided some economic benefit was it accepted by the majority of Scots.
The argument from the junta is going to be that Scotland surrendered it’s sovereignty to the union parliament in 1707 and reaffirmed that in 2014.
They will never now agree to any democratic route which takes Scotland’s resources beyond their control.
Nothing will be off the table in pursuit of that agenda,we are not dealing with honourable gentlemen but a pack of rabid wolves.
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bringiton,
Perhaps. I have the general feeling that England is sleep walking into a dictatorship.
However, they are so incompetent in multiple directions that Scottish independence might be the least of their concerns. A hard Brexit could be a complete, utter disaster. Not only will we have lost a trade deal with the EU it is now pretty clear that a Democratic administration in the USA would view any faffing around with the ‘Good Friday Agreement’ by Westminster as a good enough reason to have no deal whatsoever with the UK. So we may well lose two of our major export markets.
I’d also assume that speculators will bet against the pound sterling and that it will drop like a stone.
I am also not impressed in the slightest by Westminster’s tackling of COVID – 19. There is a winter coming and the damned bug seems to prefer colder weather. We are already seeing increasing infection rates, which, I think I am right in saying, haven’t yet translated into increasing death rates. As our good host mentioned we may see runs on non-perishable goods around about January. So, perhaps, buy now (!) might be good advice.
On a more topical note, BoJo looked like a smallish schoolboy who had to sit whilst the headmaster ripped him to shreds. Argueable as it may be, he certainly looked like someone who had got caught out. He looked as if he would have been happy if the green bench had simply opened up and swallowed him.
So, maybe some reasons to be cheerful?
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Scotland’s sovereignty was not voluntary given up by the nation of Scotland according to historical events, England sent an army up to force Scottish people to comply with what they wanted, by the use of violence,
That does not change the fact that the people of Scotland never voted to join in a treaty of union with England, legally or officially,
And further more it actually makes the 2014 Scottish referendum on independence irrelevant, for the following reasons of logic,
If the people of Scotland as a nation did not vote or agree to the 1707 treaty of the union, it is simply not legally valid, therefore it follows that to ask the people of Scotland if they want to stay in that bogus treaty, in 2014 , is by definition also bogus and not valid,
We cannot withdraw from something that we as a nation never signed up for.
We as a nation of people in Scotland do not have a legal document we agreed to in 1707,
While the elite in Scotland at that time do indeed have individual contracts with England, and paid any financial recommences for their troubles,
These two differing legalities are there for any one read. We have been in a great British scam for 300 years or more.
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James,
Thanks for that. I’d really like it to be true. But, you knew there would be a but, all treaties in that era were between groups of people that we would consider, ahem, unrepresentative in the modern era.
Do you have somewhere I can read about the English invasion of Scotland to enforce the treaty?
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I thought the last English military invasion nearest to 1707 was 1651, when Charles ii was crowned this followed the battle of Dunbar in 1650. These were Cromwell’s fights.
I reckon the big lever used to get the signatories to sign the Treaty of Union was the Alien Act. This act was meant to hurt the powerful and it did. Incidentally money for the bribes and payments made to the Scots had to be borrowed by the English, they were skint.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Act_1705
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Alan Gordon,
Thanks for that. Your link – https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_Act_1705 – ought to be better known. Unsurprisingly, I was unaware of the facts surrounding the takeover. For it was sadly absent from my ‘education’ in history.
As they say, history is written by the victorious.
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Sorry,
That was written on the basis that it would encourage our more reluctant citizens to realize that they had backed the wrong horse. The upsides of independence are obvious, right now, to almost everyone that reads this web site – and even Niko is having ‘thoughts’ – but for some of our more thrawn compatriots perhaps they have to actually see personal harm, right there in the gut, before they see the point. For some, even that will not be enough. Perhaps they are of our colonial administrator class, perhaps for them it is ‘the end’. Perhaps they have guarantees, much like the complete failure as a leader of the Scottish Tories – Ruth Davidson – who is ‘in waiting’ for a place in the Lords.
But many do not.
The residue, that has not been ‘bought and sold for English gold’, will suffer just as much as rabid nationalists – like me – and will watch as the UK, their beloved UK, sinks beneath the waves.
And what then for them?
Well, they will find it incredibly difficult to strut on the international stage. They will have become representatives of a failed state, recognised as such by the international community.
And meanwhile:
“On a more topical note, BoJo looked like a smallish schoolboy who had to sit whilst the headmaster ripped him to shreds. Argueable as it may be, he certainly looked like someone who had got caught out. He looked as if he would have been happy if the green bench had simply opened up and swallowed him.”
I’d ask the simple question.
Amongst the 2933 subscribers to this site, is anyone willing to back BoJo?
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LOL… I’m betting that there aren’t.
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Me too.
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Well, we both win. Hurrah!
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But of course I’m willing to back BoJo, Douglas! Unless he goes, falls or is pushed by then, I back him for the English First Minister who lost Scotland! Mind you, I wouldn’t give tuppence for him, but maybe thruppence for his chance. Oh alright, thruppence ha’penny.
Of course, I want him to stay on for as long as possible because he’s our best recruiting tool for a Yes vote. ” And “tool” I said, and “tool” I meant.
I pity my English friends: our Scottish Government successfully screens out some of the worst shite from that foul regime, but our English friends have to sw – no, that particular mental image is too raw even for me. Pass the brain bleach!
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Douglas, most of this information is readily available when entered into google, and perhaps it is better than just paying heed to myself.
One of the interesting facts I came across to day is that Scots law under the articles of the treaty of the union was to stay lawful in Scotland after the treaty was agreed to and signed by England.
This is interesting as the newly formed british parliament apparently broke the treaty of the union in 1708 when it bought into being, Treason act 1708, thereby cancelling that which was stated as, law in Scotland, Scotland held and had its own version of Treason law, before and after the signing of the treaty of the union,
Altering it to fit the English version of treason, in 1708 means it broke the treaty of union articles less than one year after the treaty was signed.
If the parliament of Britain believe in the treaty of the union as a legal document that is binding in its words and acts, why do they not legally adhere to those acts that are supposed to be set in stone.
Perhaps the British Westminster government do not believe in international treaties, and the EU have been naive, along with Scotland,
There are other instances from the British parliament that have broken the acts of the treaty of the union,1707 between Scotland and England. Such as the Burghs acts,
On a slightly different note, Craig Murray also wrote an article in December 2018 called, The Scottish Parliament does have the right to withdraw from the act of union,
He used to be a British diplomat and international, so he would certainly be in a more knowledgeable position than I.
We seem to ignore these details to our own peril.
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James Cheyne,
To the contrary, I respect your scholarship. I kinda disrespect the pish I was taught as ‘O’ grade History. To the limited extent The Union of the Crowns and the Union of the Parliaments were taught, they were more or less glossed over as mere events in the far more fascinating story of Imperial Glory. Whomsoever constructed that prospectus has a very special place in my version of hell.
You mentioned in passing one of my hero’s, Craig Murray. It is rare, in the extreme, for me to be gobsmacked by another’s morality. Craig Murray is one of the exceptions that proves the rule.
He has a court case against him, ongoing right now, and yet he is reporting on the ridiculous Julian Assange case. From inside that court.
I know that evil wins when good people look away. What I most admire about Mr Murray is that he insists that good people do not look away.
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My cupboards and spare shelves are filled with stores, just in case! Will get some extra flour later on and must remember sticky note on fridge; “Don’t forget the toilet paper.”
They (Westminster) won’t need to close Holyrood, by reducing it’s area of effectiveness it will start to appear as an expensive talking shop and then we, the Scottish people will be given the option to close it.
The main thrust, I think, behind the Internal Market Bill is to roll out the idealogues plans, unhindered. One of the main, and urgent, ones being the setting up of Free Ports, probably 10 or 12 across the UK. I haven’t looked at the detail, to see if they can also oversee local planning, they would need this.
This bill smacks of urgency, even desperation. Although something like this must’ve been planned in order to pacify the ERG. I was suspicious when the Irish Sea border became apparent and there was no outcry from the ERG, a border between NI and UK, for them, was a line in the sand deep enough to die in.
And, Westminster already has enough legal quashing power over any Scottish veto, through the Scotland Act, section 28;
The UK government has unqualified legal power in Scotland. Why this Internal Market fiasco?
The stakes have been upped.
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They seem to have been unaware that Free Ports existed while we were in the EU.
Yes. You’re right. No need to shut it down just let jack take all the decisions with no scrutiny safe in his hidey hole.
But we’ll only tolerate that for so long.
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I’m not despondent, I have long thought that bad things will need to happen in order to shake the middle ground out of any comfort that the status quo affords them. Some of the moves, from westminster, that are in the pipeline and the turds to come from brexit should do it.
I agree with the comment, quoting Craig Murray, from John. The Withdrawal Agreement was due to be broken, this would have kept the ERG quiet. Although this would have been planned after January 1st, events (polls?) have brought it forward.
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No, I’m not really despondent either.
I’d have preferred it another way, but if Johnson, Cummings and Gove persuade us that leaving is the only way, then they will have been of some use after all.
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Free Portx eh! An objective view.
https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/trade/free-ports-backward-looking-on-trade/
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A good overview of FreePorts Kangaroo.
The last paragraph, FreePorts; “are attractive to the ultra brexiteers who are locked in the past and have no idea how modern business works.” Has it right.
Two other statements ring with relevance for any Westminster plan for FreePorts,
1) FreePorts attract criminal activity. How many investors in brexit and the No.10 gang would be gleeful of a few FreePorts?
2) FreePorts were useful to developing countries/economies.
The UK is being steered towards developing status, perhaps we can credit the shower in No.10 with the ability to forward plan. (Tongue in cheek, tongue in cheek)
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LOL, Alan!
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So, 24 hours have passed and all 2937 of you (which is up from the 2933 I reported yesterday) have nothing to positively say about BoJo. I’d go away and wonder why I like this miniscule spot on t’internet thingy, but I don’t have to.
You, my fellow commentators, readers (and obviously tris price williams who enables all of this) are the salt of the earth. (Whatever the heck that means!)
Can 2937 folk make a difference? I kinda hope so.
Respect to you all.
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Erm, he’s got a nice suit. It looks like it cost a good few thousands.
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They’d look better if he had them pressed occasionally. Though the rumpled look does fit with his whole slovenly schoolboy shtick.
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