WHY I WITHHELD MY VOTE
This piece first appeared in THE SCOTTISH REVIEW WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD READ
by Ian Hamilton QC
I made my vote count. I withheld it. I have always voted for independence. When there was no candidate I spoiled my paper.
It is clear that independence is upon us. The SNP should now define it. Once it meant being another Albania. When I first joined the SNP in 1942 its motto was Scotland Free and Neutral. There was a war on which I was soon to join. Now independence means something different.
Firstly it means we renegotiate the union with our neighbours. We have too many interests in common not to share them. The SNP should tell us what things are to be shared.
No one in Scotland wants to share England’s foreign policy. They think they’re still an imperial power. They want aircraft carriers even if they don’t have aeroplanes. They want nuclear submarines even if there’s no nuclear threat. We don’t want these things. (We don’t mind being paid to build their useless junk.) We must join NATO and the UN. These two bodies are our great hope for the future of our species.
Likewise we must join the European Union. The deal England made on behalf of the UK was a betrayal of Scotland’s interests, particularly the fishing industry. What terms does the SNP have in mind? Is there in England anyone wise enough to comment on how these terms will affect England? The same goes for our oil. How will England cope without it? England is so wrapped up in its own affairs that it has little time for its nearest neighbours. We must chap more loudly on their back door.
On all these policies the SNP are silent. Soon the unionists will turn. A nation, like a woman, takes a long time to change its mind. To do so is the prerogative of both. So far neither Scotland nor England has had the vision to look into the future and where there is no vision the people perish. I won’t vote for independence until it’s more clearly defined for me.
I have also a compelling domestic reason to withhold my vote. The SNP record on legal issues is disgraceful. We have had the worst lord advocate for 60 years. She failed to prosecute the RBS for the most blatant fraud. It called for investment in its shares when the directors must have known they were over twenty billion (yes billion!) in debt. Then there was the Sheridan case. The police investigated only one side of that notorious perjury. From the beginning the News of the World were held to have been wronged. I know of no prior case where big business so blatantly used the police and the Crown Office as its tools.
Further, as an act of vindictiveness, Mrs Sheridan was put through the ordeal of a trial. Then Ms Angiolini, the lord advocate, said it wasn’t in the public interest to convict her. Why then prosecute her? Why did no one in government or parliament ask Ms Angiolini what she was about? Were they all afraid of the News of the World?
As if that weren’t enough we have had a minister of justice who has done nothing to open the civil courts to us all. Only the rich can afford our law. There is a small claims court that could settle many a dispute at trifling costs. Alas it has an escape clause! If the sheriff thinks the case is ‘too complicated’ he can remit it to his ordinary court where the costs can reach millions. This power should be repealed. It puts a government gauleiter in every court. No citizen can bring a case which might embarrass the government. Sheriffs can be leant on and I suspect often are. They are a poor lot. Power of their appointment must be given to a committee of senior judges.
Lastly no one in this election has spoken for the 25% of our children who live below the poverty line. I got a free tertiary education. My father taught me that education gave me duties. One of these was to look after poorer people. A scatter of so-called socialists, a Labour Party with Thatcherite principles, and Tommy Sheridan silent in jail. These are the only people who claim to care about my country’s dispossessed, or say they do…only one of them has a voice for caring and our hand is over his mouth.
‘To each according to his needs.’
Don’t make me weep.
May 9th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Ian some time back I posted a comment about the scottish legal fraternity and links between various members and you deleted it citing that is was unfounded.
We both know what goes on behind closed doors well I presuming you do
So whilst you raise important points , surely the greater point is the exposure to sunlight of all that is dark and immoral in the Scottish Legal Family, the rest will follow
May 9th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Ian Hamilton could easily start up an e petition, or something more direct by approaching the politicians with regard to his idea for a small claims court.
I think it is wrong to saddle the SNP with the blame for poverty, it was indeed mentioned…..as an afterthought of the labour party who have presided over this blight of Scotland for most part of 50 years.
I have even read that “keeping them poor and dependant” was a labour tactic in Glasgow to encourage the poor and I sort of believe it has a factual basis.
There are a lot of ordinary Scots out there who did vote, and if they have brilliant ideas then they should remind the SNP that they believe in the sovereignty of the people as a principle and it is time to listen to what we want for our future.
I always use my vote in Westminster or Scottish elections, seven votes was all that allowed the SNP to take Anniesland in Glasgow, and it bears reminding that one phone call to the current PM has improved one aspect of the Scotland Bill at a stroke and the others will come-would never have happened without this political landslide.
Scots law has stagnated due to being part of a top heavy British legal institution and failed to develop properly, it needs to be backed fully and updated to suit a modern Scotland and that is an argument that the Scottish Government should look at as much as embassies or other spoils of a partnership country in the union.
May 10th, 2011 at 7:52 am
“On all these policies the SNP are silent”
Nonsense. SNP policy is (notoriously, I would have thought) to remain outside of NATO, although there are voices within the party suggesting limited membership (remaining outside the command structure) which looks like an attempt to get a little bit pregnant. NATO is tantamount to a criminal organisation: at best (and it’s a poor best) it is merely an instrument of US foreign policy. The bombing of Yugoslavia was condemned by the Red Cross and by Amnesty International, and similar censure is likely to follow the incursions in Libya. I am surprised that you would wish to see Scotland anywhere near such an entity. However SNP distaste for NATO antedates these atrocities, being originally based simply on the fact that NATO has nuclear weapons.
SNP enthusiasm for the UN is perfectly well known (see here http://www.snp.org/node/9525) and the SNP policy of continued EU membership goes back many years - a favourite unionist jibe is that an independent Scotland would be denied this desired membership.
I am not competent to comment on the predicament of our legal system, but as a layman I was rather surprised at the SNP decision to leave Angiolini in place, and I am one of the many perplexed by Salmond’s attitude to the Megrahi case. The prosecution of Sheridan was, I agree, scandalous and politically motivated.
You will find the sort of creative speculation you desire on Scotland’s future on sites like Bella Caledonia, Scottish Review and Scottish Left Review, while I am sure I am not the only visitor here who would welcome your suggestions for overhaul of the legal system - who better?
May 10th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Its as plain as the nose on your face where this is all going!. The SNP are becoming just another right wing party, if Scotland ever gets its independence you will find it becomes just another right wing thiefdom, there to serve the self-enrichment and ennoblement of a few at the expence of the many. The only reason Tommy Sheridan was set up was to take him out of the picture, the day six SSP members were elected to the scottish parliament scared them to the core of their being, steps were set in motion at that point. Anyway, we are all about to see how things will unfold in a matter of months, its not going to be nice folks.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.”
Political economist Frederic Bastiat, The Law (1850)
May 10th, 2011 at 11:44 am
“The SNP are becoming just another right wing party”
Cast your mind back over your recent movements, haggis old chap. I think at some point you have stepped through a looking glass.
May 10th, 2011 at 2:39 pm
I have stepped through no looking glass,
Dougie old chap. The SNP have always been either slightly to the left which they were many years ago or moving further and further to the right as they are doing now. The question is how far right are they going to go ?. As I said… “we are all about to see how things will unfold”.
May 10th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Well Ian at least you had a reason for withholding your vote.
A shocking number just couldn’t be bothered. That scared me more than anything. Low turnouts are depressing. I understand apathy, goodness knows we have all seen enough to leave not an ounce of belief in politics or in those who make their living there. But the “I can’t be bothereds” disgust me.
As for examples where “the Law” is exposed as something not to be trusted, look no further than Lockerbie and the conviction of Megrahi and go right through the whole sorry saga up to and including the Scottish Political Establishment preventing the SCCRC from publishing findings, concerning the conviction, which public money funded the Commission to produce. Reason to weep in its own right I would say.
Sorry Haggis, on Sheridan, I think he gave his enemies a lot of help when it came to his own destruction. He was a fool and should have known better. He can save no one now.
May 11th, 2011 at 9:29 am
“A shocking number just couldn’t be bothered.”
“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men”
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.”
Plato (428 BC-348 BC)
May 11th, 2011 at 9:58 am
A root and branch clear out seems to be on the cards in our our individual and collective thinking not only as Scots citizens but as global citizens: Not “chucking out the baby with the bathwater”, but burying the infant appropriately; and, to mix metaphors, “sticking yer granny un’er the grun’” before her corpse goes off and infects the general populace (and sticking them well under for hygiene’s sake, but sustaining them and their quixotic essence(s) in craic of remembrance - some damning and some making allowances of all our foibles - our flawed delight and human process).
Sometimes and necessarily, some lines need drawn in the sand and honest exchanges about fundamentals, for sake of honesty and human growth, need to be exchanged for otherwise it becomes a theatre of the foul and oppressive absurd (to the point of the assassination of consciousness, conscience, sense of universal rights of human beings, variegatal suppression of flesh and blood’s spiritual and blood and muscle and brain’s arteries and the commonwealth - not the limited “Anglo-Saxon” philosophical and etic
May 11th, 2011 at 10:25 am
(cont) streams of pish spattered on us by us - colluding; and on us - cravenly complicity in our destruction.
We, forgive me, professional fucks - teachers and lawyers in particular (I try to be the former) - have utterly failed and sold out our people for we have profoundly abandoned them not briefly, but for GENERATIONS, to the point - I posit - severe, psychological (but not irremediable - pace the recent unionist trashing of their trash).
We bear a traditional and rightly appropriate burden, us teachers and advocates and solicitors and doctors and engineers and scientists and all enquiring scholar/practitioners: the eliciting of truth and its
May 11th, 2011 at 10:43 am
(3)
application.
I accuse us teachers, at whatever level and as the primary “font” of utter decimation of enquiry after empirical, balanced and rigorous truth-seeking (we are not alone in this and not, perhaps, the worst pedlars of
its execrescenses) - but we have been giving it a complicit go for far and away too long now.
Time to stop the wickedness of all of us lucky to have been gifted with opportunities out of struggle being again and, excuse me and all aspirants, severely fcuked over.
Up the Scottish Workers Republic and comradely felicitations
David
May 11th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Sir
Should you have anything that might help to grow us all- publish, please, as it is vital (as should other action-philosophers like Matt Lygate and Scotland’s version Simone de Beauvoir - Linda Garthland-Lygate).
Open debate to prevent the decay of intellectual incest.
Fraternally
David Gerard MacGuaire MacGille-Mhuire
May 11th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Once again a comment that made me stop and think.
I will still vote SNP as it is the best of the lot, and the only way we get the best o the lot is by voting, but nothing is perfect.
Regardless of all the ills, which you rightly account, I dearly hope we are closer to indepndence than ever before. It is a long road, and we have still along way to go, but last week we may have taken a big step. Only tme will tell….
May 14th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Anyone who believes or accepts the jibe that the SNP iare “another right wing party” patently has no appreciation for the political evolution of our country, and must be aligning themselves ideologically with the likes of the SSP, Solidarity, Galloway and the Scargillites, none of whom have a seat in our Parliament.
Like Mr Hamilton, I have significant respect for Sheridan the man, and the politician, and I also agree that justice was ill served by the vitriolic way in which he was pursued by the system. Clearly, there are questions remaining to be answered.
In terms of voices of protest, the Parliament might also have benefited from the presence of members from some of the above.
However, in respect of where we are as a nation, many of us recognise that this point in the history of our national struggle has only been reached through the dedication and commitment of people of selfless vision, and the tenacity to see it through.
Critically, the collective body that is the National Movement has often been inspired and sustained by individual actions of visionary boldness - of which Ian Hamilton’s stunning repatriation of the Stone of Destiny in 1950 is possibly the most outstanding example, its reverberations remaining with us today, and surely for generations to come.
Having played such a vital role in the reawakening of his country to reclaim its destiny, Ian is more than entitled to remain a ‘rebel’; and where would we be without such voices?
However, I for one don’t believe Ian Hamilton aligns himself with the parties like the SSP (please correct me if I’m wrong!), or would fall for the hogwash that the SNP are somehow a “right wing” party.
It took a long, gradual process for the SNP to evolve politically; however, I believe its foundations in our social democratic traditions, as well as its dynamic outlook, are the stronger for that.
Last week’s historic election results were a validation of the many fronts on which the SNP has stood up for Scotland, for the protection of public services and public values, as well as for vital investment in green energy and business growth, and of the popular faith in it as the movement to take our country forward.
Through that result, we are now closer to achieving independence than ever before in the modern era - and we are on the verge of something truly historic.
It took the commitment of generations, hard won faith, and a good few exceptional individuals to get us here.
Those who would now dismiss the SNP as “another right wing party” might well be asked to explain how they themselves would run the country, or grow the economy better - let alone lead us forward to freedom!
May 15th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Hi Ian
It is always a great pleasure to read everything you write because no-one provokes such debate as yourself. You are its best critic.
There is a conference/summit on Thomas Muir QC on 25th May in Tom Johnson House, in Kirkintilloch, which you should have been invited to. The conference was my idea following on from the campaign for a statue to Muir at the Scottish parliament.
It would be one of the greatest pleasures of my life if a modern hero of mine could attend……..the panthoen of heroes include Robert Burns, Thomas Muir, Keir Hardie, Jimmy Reid and Ian Hamilton QC.
The big divorce is coming and we need a legal rep to help negotiate the division of assets and also to cast a beam of ligt on who and what we are and what Scotland is to become when we take our place as a nation within the family of humankind.
Paddy S H
May 20th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Like my thoughts on my own dad (sadky passed on) and two favourite uncles and three aunts (still withus) and as a youngish 47 year old I have always been dismayed that Ian Hamilton QC “wisnae younger” as he is of a character that is not easily replaceable though there are more like him than ever before in recent Scottish memory……….I wish he was 47.
The fact there are more like him with their flaws and brilliance (and the brilliance is always more entertaining) is most probably down to him and him alone, an achievement he will always be remembered for though I don”t know what Ian thinks of that one.
I hope he has a copy of all the bits that either touch of treason or stone of destiny left out due to his own choosing and he should publish it now, his opinion on Lockerbie, the lot.
Ian iis old and wise and we would be entertained and informed, my favourite political and social pastimes collide with that sentiment alone though his inability to cast a vote two weeks ago disappoints me but he has his reasons I suppose, and choice is a personal thing.
Angus
Pretty selfish I know.
May 20th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Spelling and grammar errors are brilliantly excused by the ayepad which allows a fairly limited scope to reread and improve.
The sentiment remains intact though.
July 8th, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Why do you think the wee man wants independence it is not only to libarate himself from the shackles of union but more urgently the shackles of oppression that is Scottish big society.
The SNP are the only unicorn in town albeit that they are fettered to a (post)-union funeral hearse containing the rotting corpse of muscular liberalism.
The death stench from the rotting flesh of that muscular liberalism is everywhere potent and overpowering all the way from the Scottish Parliament to the dole offices and housing schemes, asphyxiating the Scots body politic.
July 30th, 2011 at 6:05 am
Having marched the bride down the aisle, my friend Ian is withholding his consent to his daughter’s marriage as he is not too sure about which Mr Independent is standing there. What happens if she says, I do? She is beyond the stage of needing her father’s consent, which is the problem with beginning a bandwagon rolling without knowing in which direction it is going.
March 30th, 2012 at 11:21 pm
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April 15th, 2012 at 1:14 am
Of course, while our firm doesn’t file in this jurisdiction the increasing number of cases generally being processed in small claims court mean that complainants should find expert advice of a legal agent as the rules generally are quite daunting
April 15th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Further, things with arbitration would make it seem like it is an easy process like on daytime television courtroom dramas, in fact one should seek representation from a lawyer in your jurisdiction to go forward with your matter to ensure that you dont have further problems, court rules are quite complex these days.
April 15th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
While our firm doesn’t retain clients for this jursidiction more and more matters are going to small claims court instead and one can get a false sense of security which is a bad assumption. One should be seeking the representation of a proper legal agent as the rules in small claims court are not as simple as one would think.