Speeches
SPEECH BY STEWART CONNELL
(17 NOV 2022 PREFACE)
"We are now in the interval before the final and decisive act."
The National Suicide of Britain took place on the 23rd of March 2020.
SPEECH TO UKIP SCOTLAND
JURY INN HOTEL GLASGOW
19.30 FRIDAY 18 TH MAY 2018
“Devolution and The Road to Ruin”
Not to far from were gather tonight, is St Enoch’s Square,
where for almost a century St Enoch’s Railway Station and
Hotel stood.
It was it was one of three large railway stations in Glasgow
city centre.
Imposing and majestic with a sweeping frontage it was
arguably the most striking in the United Kingdom.
It was demolished in 1977 and dumped into Queen’s Dock just
a mile or two down river. Today a shopping centre sits on the
St Enoch’s site and the Scottish Exhibition Centre sits on top
of Queens Dock.
In recent years National Rail has initiated reports on
the of building a third large railway station in Glasgow city
centre.
In 1997, the Conservative Party held it’s annual conference in
Blackpool, in the Wintergardens. During the conference the
Scottish Conservatives held a meeting in St John’s Church
just across the road from the Wintergardens.
The party in Scotland had been wiped out in that year’s
general election and in the devolution referendum in
the September, there was a “yes” result in relation to the
introduction of the legislative devolved experiment.
As the senior officers and the officials of the party entered the
room, the one noticeable thing about them was, how happy
they looked, beaming full of happiness. It was as though a
large weight had been removed from their political shoulders.
which of course, it had.
In 2004 the Regional Assemblies Bill was presented to
Parliament by John Prescott and Tony Blair. It is important
to recognise that devolution has two meanings not one. There
is administrative devolution and there is legislative devolution.
Administrative devolution is more widely known as “local
government” it poses no threat to the United Kingdom and sits
quite comfortably in our unitary and integral parliamentary
representative democracy.
Legislative devolution however is another matter. It has three
distinct features which make it impossible for it to exist inside
our unitary system.
The features of devolved legislative initiative, the creation of
a devolved territorial institution and the attachment to it of a
territorial electorate combine to create a perpetual conflict
between the national parliament and the devolved parliament
and assemblies.
We were warned of this by the anti-devolutionist’s of the
1970’s and 1980’s.
The Regional Assemblies Bill falls on the administrative side of
the devolution fence, it is an elaborate form of
administrative devolution. It’s character is partly to
do with the presentation of it as a building block to a
symmetrical devolved governmental architecture across the
UK rather than the asymmetrical architecture which existed
then and still does.
It is a dense piece of legislation and full of cautious, hesitant
provision’s. It is clear from the text that the drafters feared
that the English assemblies might in the future be tempted go
down the legislative road of the Scottish, Northern Irish and
Welsh models and mechanism’s exist in the bill to prevent
that, not least, the repeated referral back of potential
assembly proposals to the Secretary of State for permission.
For the Labour and the Conservative parties the Assembly
proposals where getting a bit to “close to home” for them, it
didn’t matter so much what they did in Scotland or in Wales or
even les so in the province but devolution in England could
threaten the integrity of England and that was getting a bit to
close for comfort for both parties who when they thought
about it at all regarded the matter of the Union it as a relic
from the past and rather troublesome and of no actual current
political worth. Also the Union was so old in an age of
newness and so familiar at the same time that the suggestion
that the Union had serious political relevance or even faced a
potential threat was laughed off, however it would not be too
long before the Union would not only return to be at the very
centre of all politics but it would be the matter that would take
the entire United Kingdom to the edge of complete dis-
integration and political chaos on a single night, eight years
later.
In 2010 the general election saw 59 out of 59 MP’s elected
across Scotland and instructed to go and sit in the British
House of Commons. The 59 included 5 SNP, they and the 54
others had been elected on the same representational basis,
that is they had committed to their constituency electorates
that if elected they would go to the House of Commons and
take their seats and in doing so accept as valid and binding
the authority of the British Parliament. No abstentionist
candidate was elected. The SNP is not an abstentionist party.
It is committed to representation in the in the British
Parliament and does this because quite simply wins more
votes by doing so.
Representationalism and abstionism are different sides of the
same parliamentary democratic coin.
In a very real political sense the United Kingdom is subject to
renewal every five years or so through a general election.
For centuries generation after generation in the ballot box
have been free to renew or otherwise the Union.
The general election saw the electorate exercise their
Individual, singular authority and transmit it into their MP and
then see it collectively exercised in the House of Commons of
the British Parliament.
In 2011 The SNP won a majority in the devolved election to the
devolved parliament on a devolved manifesto.
The 1998 Scotland Act in Schedule 5 is very clear on what
matters are reserved to the British Parliament for a British
mandate. These include the Union, the Constitution, Defence
and Foreign Affairs.
The devolved parliament has no competence on the matter of
the constitution and of course, while the SNP puffed
themselves up and sought to create a fog on the
devolved parliaments competence, on the constitution
there was none, it was and is in black and white in Schedule
Five, if anyone can be bothered to look.
The danger to the Union came not from the SNP but from the
Conservative Party.
Keen to get a majority in the next general election set by the
Fixed Parliaments Act and scheduled for 2015 they began
thinking about how the referendum device could serve them
and get them the majority that they sought.
By the end of the year they had decided on a win/win strategy
strategy. They would hold a referendum on the United
Kingdom itself and restrict it to Scotland. They would
nominally campaign for the Union and if the result was for the
union they could present themselves as defenders of the union
and could expect damage to Labour in Scotland. If they lost
they could expect to govern in England and present the end of
the Union, as an allegedly democratic decision, good sports
and all that.
On Sunday the 8 th of January 2012 the leader of the
Conservative party walked onto the Andrew Marr show on BBC
television and launched the referendum. It was not Alex
Salmond, not Nicola Sturgeon not the SNP it was the
Conservative Party, that threw the United Kingdom onto the
casino table in the interests of the Conservative Party.
In 2013 the Modification Order was introduced to the House of
Commons this was the legislative measure to effect David
Cameron’s launch of the referendum the previous year.
This would allow the devolved parliament to handle the matter
and set up the logistics for it to take place.
Although it essential to note at this point that no provision
exists to place authority in a referendum device, authority
would continue to exist in Members of Parliament before
during and after the referendum.
Unlike other matters of high constitutional importance this
measure did not travel through Parliament with the House of
Commons sitting as a committee. There was no green paper,
no white paper and no bill. The Order was passed on the nod.
It was passed unanimously. While other constitutional
matters, nevermind the existence of the United Kingdom itself,
have taken months, years sometimes even decades to work
their way through parliament, the order was done in 5 hrs. The
next day the House of Lord’s did the same thing.
In 2014 the Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael finally
conceded that the Modification Order would not effect the
authority of MP’S or constituencies. The authority placed in
them in 2010 remained intact.
While it served both Conservative and Labour parties to
present the image of the referendum a decisive authority it
was fiction.
In the British constitution, authority can only be in one place
at one time. It cannot be in a referendum and in MP’s at the
same time. And as we have seen in the EU membership
referendum if a political statement is put on paper in a
referendum, with no human element gathering information
then conducting analysis and then an agreeing on
interpretation and a proposed means of application, division
and confusion follow, what in detail, have voters voted for?
A referendum cannot provide representation only a
representational mechanism with the human element making
continuous decisions for us as a society can do this, we have
a phrase for this type of mechanism, it is called a general
election
To put it another way the referendum was an opinion poll as
all referendums must be in the British parliamentary
tradition.
In 2015 the now largely forgotten general election took place
with the Conservative Party standing on a “stay in the EU”
manifesto. It won with a majority of 17.
In 2016 in the March Boris Johnson and Michael Gove decided
to jettison their manifesto commitment from less than a year
earlier and declare for to leave the EU. No submission of
their decision was made to their constituency electorates.
On the 23 rd of June the day of the referendum Theresa May,
said we must stay in.
On the 24 th of June Theresa May said we must get out.
And then we have to look carefully at what happened next,
David Cameron resigns and then we enter into a strange
period for three weeks where no one is quite sure what is
happening or who is governing the country.
And then there is the fictional contest for the leadership of the
Conservative Party.
It is an contest between Theresa May and Theresa May, with
walk on bit parts for aspiring actors A sole nomination is not
an election.
Then on the 13 th of July Theresa may emerges from
Buckingham Palace as the Primeminister.
By what authority ? Royal Appointment ? We know where that
got us in the past.
No one has voted for any of this.
No one has elected her, certainly not the British electorate in
a general election.
There is a phrase for this for what has just happened, it is a
coup de tat and it happened right in front of our eyes.
And then from from 13 th July 2016 until June the 8 th 2017, we
have a new Primeminister, new ministers, new ministries, a
new government, new policies, and most of all a new
manifesto.
No one has voted for any of this.
There is a phrase for this type of government, a government
without election it is a despotic state. Yes it happened here.
Actually it is worse than that. The British electorate had
voted for the complete opposite of this unauthorised imposed
manifesto just a year earlier in 2015.
On the highest political matter, the political independence of
the nation state, the British voted (wether we like it or not) to
stay in the EU in 2015 and now they were, apparently, getting
out, in complete opposition to their expressed recorded
authority in the parliamentary ballot box.
In February 2017 things have quietened down a bit in Scotland,
the political intelligence has got back to Conservative Central
Office that the electors want the Union but do not want
another referendum. Referendums are bad news in Scotland.
Then in March 2017 Theresa May decides to have another
referendum on the Union.
This, is the “now is not the time” referendum.
While no date was put on it, it was left to hang in the air like a
dark heavy cloud waiting to burst.
Then in April 2017 Theresa May goes on a walking holiday in
Wales and while out walking just happens to decide to hold,
another general election.
And then, we work back and the sequence of events all
become clear. The referendum is to form the backdrop of the
general election campaign in Scotland and the Conservative
party will pose as a unionist party and pose as a party that is
against another referendum even though it has just introduced
one.
The Conservative party then entered the election with
suggestions that the failed home secretary might lead them to
win a fifty or a hundred or a hundred and fifty even a two
hundred majority, but to no avail, she is rumbled and loses her
majority.
In Scotland, however, the fictional narrative of the
Conservative Party being a unionist party and opposing
another referendum works and they win votes, lots of votes
over 350,000 extra votes, and from places that Conservative
Party could not otherwise have reached, this is not because
The voters have become supporters of the Conservative Party,
it is because they have no where else to go.
In 2018 we are not only faced with 50 years of constitutional
Disintegration, we are faced with the combined moral, social
and economic dissolution of the nation.
Fifty years on from the 1960’s so called “progressive”
revolution, the Union is a now a hollow Union where the moral,
social and economic elements have coroded away inside the
the neglected constitutional casing.
On the moral front the established Church of Scotland has
retreated from providing Christian witness and direction to
society, it has capitulated to temporal power otherwise known
the equality and diversity code. If you have any doubt about
this then simply ask the congregation of the Tron Church just
up the road from here who were thrown onto the streets by the
Church of Scotland for holding to traditional Christian teaching
rather than submit to the new code. The nation will find no
moral leadership from the current occupants of 121 George
Street.
On the social front the matter of abortion is never mentioned
by the Conservative and Labour Parties. Since 1967 over eight
million abortions have taken place. Soon we will not be able to
number the loss. Worktime lunchtime abortions and internet
and over the counter abortion pills will mean that the
number of abortions will no longer be able to be counted in any
meaningful way.
Meanwhile in an age of mass digital communication we have
mass lonliness and mass misery and increasingly silo
lifestyles which are lived in singleton houses
with singleton leasehold cars and solo interest’s and solo
holidays and solo pastimes.
And of course, the economy, we have exchanged our serious
national economy, based on defence, public infrastructure and
heavy industry for a debt based, service marketplace in which
our physical and mental effort actually work against us. The
more we work the poorer we get and the country is engulfed in
even more private misery. But don’t worry, according to the
Conservative and Labour parties, the Uber model, the gig and
the deliveroo economy will save us…if you can ride a bike, that
is.
All this and I have not even mentioned the unmentionable
so I will mention it, because it tick’s away in the
background of this country’s politics every single day and
night effecting every single policy.
Immigration.
We have been fifty years on this road to ruin.
We are now at the end of the road.
The historical events between 2012 and 2017 have only been a
dress rehearsal.
We are now in the interval before the final and decisive act.
The country must now speak or forever hold it’s peace.
It is time for parliamentary representative democracy to do it’s
job and represent the British, people whatever they decide.
The British electorate must decide openly at a general
election what they want. On one side a political formation
that openly, argues that it no longer wants Britain, to be
Britain but want it to be, something else, what Emily Matliss
described as “New Britain” on Newsnight on the evening of the
Opening of the 2012 Olympic Games in London and on the
other side, a single political formation that on a broad
manifesto will repair and restore Britain as Britain.
It is late.
The final and decisive act is about to start.
This is no time to sit in your seats.
END