Will Australia be forced to change its flag in 2014 if Scotland votes yes?

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Mar 16, 2007
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???? You sure re Gibraltar (let alone Falklands)? The Poms have long told the cow stabbers to get stuffed for a variety of reasons not least the Royal Navy..

Would be wrong to besmirch the good name of the whole civil service, but it was my understanding that back in Blair's day the UK was significantly down the line of at least entering some sort of secret shared sovereignty deal with Spain, a deal that had a lot of support within the Foreign Office but not with the Gibraltarians themselves.

Similar with the Falklands and the want of the Foreign Office for Hong Kong-style 99 year leaseback in the 1970's (though they might have been on to something with that one. Could have saved 1000+ lives. Will never happen now)
 

medusala

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Seems you are right. Wasn't here then so didn't know that. Doubt any realistic prospect of other given 90% + of each want to remain British. RN would be utterly furious as well I would think not that TB ever gave a stuff about the armed forces.

Just another reminder of what a low dog Blair was (and Peter Hain worse) and how vehement his Euro fanaticism was/is.
 

MaddAdam

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Doesn't mean that Whitehall wouldn't like it to happen though

So would Dublin.

If they could somehow slice off those Sic Counties, tow them out into the Atlantic and sink them, they happily would.

Gerry Adams playing a blinder at the moment though.
 

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MaddAdam

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Not so sure. Ulster and Scotland have far more in common than Ulster and England. Interesting question though. Neither side has any real interest in maintaining it. I have heard in the past the Poms have considered it, the issue was whether the IRA with Irish backing would effectively take over (or try to).

Trimble blethering on other day about how a Yes vote in Scotland would lead to renewed violence in NI.

Agreed Ulster and Scotland, on both "sides" have far more in common than anything inside the M25.

Let us not forget the kilt and bagpipes are originally Irish.
 

medusala

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So would Dublin.

If they could somehow slice off those Sic Counties, tow them out into the Atlantic and sink them, they happily would.

Gerry Adams playing a blinder at the moment though.

Whats that all about? It wasnt that long ago that the Irish cabinet cheered when the Brighton bomb went off. Now seems to be complete indifference to NI. Are they that scared of Sinn Fein? Or more to it than that? Dont want to spend the £ up there?

Gerry playing a blinder? Not sure being called out over a murder of a woman falsely accused of being a tout is a brilliant thing.
 

medusala

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Torygraph now stealing story lines from MaddAdam

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...-would-forever-be-the-man-who-lost-the-union/

Yet we now know that he himself is taking that possibility seriously enough to start preparing a defence of his own position should it come to pass. That’s the clearest sign yet of how worried Westminster Tories are over what’s going on “up there”.
What worries them is the growing realisation that the vote will be won or lost in parts of the world that are largely alien to most Conservatives (and, to be fair, to an awful lot of Labour and Lib Dem folk too): the housing schemes of Glasgow and Dundee
 

MaddAdam

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Whats that all about? It wasnt that long ago that the Irish cabinet cheered when the Brighton bomb went off. Now seems to be complete indifference to NI. Are they that scared of Sinn Fein? Or more to it than that? Dont want to spend the £ up there?

Gerry playing a blinder? Not sure being called out over a murder of a woman falsely accused of being a tout is a brilliant thing.

Given one party in the South will have to cross the ultimate Rubicon and do a coalition deal with the Shinners at the next election, they are.

Also, McConville WAS an informer.

Had already been caught with a Brit Army radio transmitter in her flat and - probably the only person ever - was actually given a warning to cease because of her situation with the 10 kids.

War is an ugly business and McConville kept on going.

Also worth noting the only reason she was in the Divis Flats was because Protestant murder squads drove her from her home for having married a Catholic.
 
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MaddAdam

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Torygraph now stealing story lines from MaddAdam

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...-would-forever-be-the-man-who-lost-the-union/

Yet we now know that he himself is taking that possibility seriously enough to start preparing a defence of his own position should it come to pass. That’s the clearest sign yet of how worried Westminster Tories are over what’s going on “up there”.
What worries them is the growing realisation that the vote will be won or lost in parts of the world that are largely alien to most Conservatives (and, to be fair, to an awful lot of Labour and Lib Dem folk too): the housing schemes of Glasgow and Dundee

Am off to meet someone in Brussels who is intimately connected into all this now.

And goss I can report back, I will.
 

MaddAdam

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Torygraph now stealing story lines from MaddAdam

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...-would-forever-be-the-man-who-lost-the-union/

Yet we now know that he himself is taking that possibility seriously enough to start preparing a defence of his own position should it come to pass. That’s the clearest sign yet of how worried Westminster Tories are over what’s going on “up there”.
What worries them is the growing realisation that the vote will be won or lost in parts of the world that are largely alien to most Conservatives (and, to be fair, to an awful lot of Labour and Lib Dem folk too): the housing schemes of Glasgow and Dundee

Like I keep saying Scottish Labour the party is virulently Unionist.

Its voters, not so much. In fact many, many, many are pro-indy.
 
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Not so sure. Ulster and Scotland have far more in common than Ulster and England. Interesting question though. Neither side has any real interest in maintaining it. I have heard in the past the Poms have considered it, the issue was whether the IRA with Irish backing would effectively take over (or try to).

The Irish Republican Army's raison d'etre is a 32 county Irish Republic. Once that happens, what reason do they have to exist? Sinn Fein will continue in politics as it has, but because there's no more need to fight for reunification in their eyes, the militant groups won't have any reason at all to go on.
 

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medusala

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Given one party in the South will have to cross the ultimate Rubicon and do a coalition deal with the Shinners at the next election, they are.

Also, McConville WAS an informer.

I thought the allegation re the radio was nonsense and just the IRA justifying the crime for which they received a heap of flack? Why would she have a transmitter? I have read quite a few books re ira informers and cant recall anyone ever using a transmitter. I wouldn't believe anything either side says.

Was it just coincidence that dying Brit soldier rocked up on her doorstep?

Re Labour voters being pro indy, I often read a surprising number of snp voters are pro union. You agree with that?
 

MaddAdam

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The Irish Republican Army's raison d'etre is a 32 county Irish Republic. Once that happens, what reason do they have to exist? Sinn Fein will continue in politics as it has, but because there's no more need to fight for reunification in their eyes, the militant groups won't have any reason at all to go on.

No, the IRA's raison 'dtre was a 32 Country republic based on the original Dail. This is a crucial development. I can't be ****ed remembering all the splits, but I think that's where the Continuity IRA went off, when Gerry and Martin agreed to recognise the Republic in the mid 80s.
 

MaddAdam

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I thought the allegation re the radio was nonsense and just the IRA justifying the crime for which they received a heap of flack? Why would she have a transmitter? I have read quite a few books re ira informers and cant recall anyone ever using a transmitter. I wouldn't believe anything either side says.

Was it just coincidence that dying Brit soldier rocked up on her doorstep?

Re Labour voters being pro indy, I often read a surprising number of snp voters are pro union. You agree with that?

The same man - Brendan Hughes - whose tapes to Boston College that Adams ordered to the whacking also said on the same tapes she was caught was he transmitter and he personally gave her the "yellow card".

Can't have it both ways.
 

MaddAdam

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Anyway medusala ... my good source from yesterday say pro-indy are running at it going 51-49 their way. Maybe even 52-48.

This, source says, DESPITE incompetence of official YES.

Their big fear is getting ahead in the polls before the date. That could motivate NO types to organise better.

They want it tight as feckery to the wire, but just behind.

Its the grass roots groups on the ground that are gaining the traction. And NO lack those, almost completely.

Like I've been saying the whole time, the SNP ground game is the best in the UK. Married to the "non affiliated" pro indy groups, and its huge.
 
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No, the IRA's raison 'dtre was a 32 Country republic based on the original Dail. This is a crucial development. I can't be ****** remembering all the splits, but I think that's where the Continuity IRA went off, when Gerry and Martin agreed to recognise the Republic in the mid 80s.

Yeah, they recognized the current 26 county Irish Republic. The old 'Irish Free State' that went through a civil war with the 32 county Republicans in the 1920's, who swore never to recognise it until it included the 6 counties in the North.

Republican Sinn Fein split from the original party in 1986, as did the Continuity IRA from the Provisional IRA the same year, as you said. As their website explains;

http://rsfnational.wordpress.com/

Republican SINN FÉIN Poblachtach was founded in 1905. In 1969 following the reformist/revolutionary split Sinn Féin re-organised as Provisional Sinn Féin upholding the Sinn Féin constitution. In 1986 Provisional Sinn Féin under a misguided leadership decided to take their seats in a British imposed parliament, namely the 26-County Parliament Leinster House.

The movement split.

Sinn Féin reformed again out of the walkout of the 86 Ard-Fheis led by the true Republican leadership, who saw the failure of the new Provisional leaderships’s decision to enter into a partitonist assembly. This as predicted led to a larger erosion of Republican principles, to the acceptance of entering a new Stormont and an acceptance of British Partition.

Republican Sinn Féin uphold the right of the Irish people to oppose continued British occupation in Ireland...

If the country is united into a 32 county Republic then this schism will close.
 

medusala

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Its the grass roots groups on the ground that are gaining the traction. And NO lack those, almost completely.

Like I've been saying the whole time, the SNP ground game is the best in the UK. Married to the "non affiliated" pro indy groups, and its huge.

I can see why the Tories aren't doing much. What is wrong with Labour? You would think they would throw everything at this.

Can't have it both ways..

Sure you can. Plenty of others have pointed to Adams in the past. Murderers often justify their actions. Look at how many touts selectively informed (probably wisely)
 

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Slightly off topic. A comment by Andrew Neil on PM regarding the prospect of the Dirty Digger throwing his media weight behind the move for Scottish independence as a means of "revenge" for the way he sees the English establishment treated him was interesting.

Ungrateful bastards after all he'd done to work in their interests in recent times too.;)

MARK COLVIN: A press report a couple of days ago says that Alex Salmond has been having a secret meeting with Rupert Murdoch and speculates that The Sun newspaper, which is a big seller in Scotland…

ANDREW NEIL: It is indeed.

MARK COLVIN: …could throw its weight behind ‘yes’. Would that have a big effect?

ANDREW NEIL: I'm not sure it would have a big effect, but it would have an effect. The nationalists are in a strange position in Scotland in the moment that no major newspaper supports independence, not even the purely Scottish-based newspapers.

I think, one, the Sunday Herald, which is a sister paper of The Glasgow Herald, I think that may have supported it, but The Scotsman doesn't, Scotland on Sunday doesn't and the Scottish editions of the London national papers, which are very powerful in Scotland, the Daily Mail and the Sun, big Scottish editions, they don't support it either.

Now Mr Murdoch blows hot and cold on this. After the whole hacking business, the forced closure of The News of the World, which he saw as the revenge of the British establishment on him, he kind of hates the British establishment so much that, for him, the ultimate revenge could be the breakup of Britain. So I wouldn't rule it out, that he would force The Sun to back Scottish independence.

I know he's flirted with it. James Murdoch, one of his sons, is very close to Alex Salmond as well. Mr Salmond always sees either of the Murdochs when they visit Scotland, gives them tea in Bute House, which is the 10 Downing Street of Edinburgh.

And I wouldn't put… Mr Murdoch is very out of sorts with the UK these days, and maybe his ultimate revenge on what he regards as the British establishment would be to take away a third of its land mass and 5 million of its people.

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s3989982.htm
 

MaddAdam

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I can see why the Tories aren't doing much. What is wrong with Labour? You would think they would throw everything at this.

Scottish Labour have a born to rule mentality far stronger than any English aristocrat.

They still haven't got over losing to the Nats in 07.
 

medusala

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I cant recall the last time I saw Darling on tv or in a newspaper interview whereas SNP is everywhere. Amazing one way traffic.

There is some suggestion that Labour stopped canvassing in the housing estates in Scotland (Northern England as well) as they knew those people would never vote Tory. Some suggestion that as per snp a surprising number will now vote UKIP, particularly as Miliband is just another Southern twxt who would be lucky to find the M1.
 

medusala

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its going from bad to worse for NO side. Wee Dougie. Interesting move.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2626699/Darling-sidelined-save-UK-lobby-Brown-bigger-role-against-SNP.html#ixzz31aDlhyJx

Alistair Darling has effectively been dumped as head of the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK following crisis cross-party talks.
Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander has been drafted in to reinvigorate the Better Together campaign run by the former Chancellor amid growing concerns about his ‘lacklustre’ performance
 

MaddAdam

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its going from bad to worse for NO side. Wee Dougie. Interesting move.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2626699/Darling-sidelined-save-UK-lobby-Brown-bigger-role-against-SNP.html#ixzz31aDlhyJx

Alistair Darling has effectively been dumped as head of the campaign to keep Scotland in the UK following crisis cross-party talks.
Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander has been drafted in to reinvigorate the Better Together campaign run by the former Chancellor amid growing concerns about his ‘lacklustre’ performance

Problem is Scots remember when wee Dougie's allegedly "brainier" sister Wendy was opposition leader in Scotland.
 

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