Sarcasm is an indication of failure of argument.
You completely misunderstand the nature of the Monarchy.
Cameron can certainly require the Queen of the UK to pass legislation of any kind and she must do that. What it cannot do is require the Queen of Australia or the Queen of Canada, or the person who is Head of the Commonwealth etc etc to do anything. Each role is seen as a different person.
The British Prime Minister could require QEII of the UK to sign into law an Act making Australia a part of the UK again subject to laws of the UK. The legislation would be in force but have no meaning for the Independent state of Australia and its head QEII of Australia who would be required to oppose such illegal and unenforcible action.
The British Parliament cannot legislate for the other realms, or for how the Commonwealth works- those decisions are made by separate polities who happen to share the same human being as head of state or head.
Cite to something post Bagehot please for your unsupported statement.
Cite please for any suggestion that the British Prime Minister and Parliament can advise the monarch on any matters other than British ones. This is so neo-colonial and typically British/and specifically English. The UK long ago gave up the pretence that it controlled an Empire and all the realms are equal in legal terms. There is no more reason why QEII should follow the advice of the British state than the Canadian, Australian or Jamaican in matters not within that realm. the structure is one of equals, not even primus inter pares. Assuming that the British State is more important than her other realms is a misunderstanding of the modern monarchy.
Although the UK has not asssented to the Convention of Nationality, the ECJ has seen fit to cite it as the prime reason for stopping another state (Austria) removing a citizen from citizenship and accepted that the convention should have effect in European Law. We have signed a Treaty of Accession to the EU which requires us to accept ECJ judgements as valid and superior to British Law.
Your statements:
“Under Article 7.1.e a state may deprive someone of nationality where he habitually resides abroad (e.g. in Scotland) and where he lacks A “genuine link” with the state of nationality. So a British citizen residing in Scotland, who wasn’t born in rUK and doesn’t have parent or grandparent born in rUK could be seen as not having the “genuine link” with rUK that would entitle him to retain its nationality. And this would enable him to be treated exactly as British Citizens residing in other Commonwealth realms on independence were treated.”
is a red herring. I have never asserted that. All I have asserted is that at the point of independence, every substantive British Citizen retains their right to that citizenship whatever their residence so long as they do not voluntarily claim another citizenship. I have said nothing about there being an absolute right to the children of such people having rUK citizenship, only extant citizens at independence.
There is an excellent book which name escapes me currently on the British habit of Invention of Tradition. This will apply in this case and it may become Scottish tradition that there is continuity from James VI o Elizabeth II as Monarch of the Scots.
There is strict legality and tradition- two different processes.
So, so colonial. The UK Parliament will need to assent to the will of the Scottish people to separate, but will have no say over the Scottish Constitution which will be entirely a Scottish Matter.
Previous separations took place in a different and more deferential environment with constitutional legislation for the Realms being initially a part of British law until they were slowly migrated to Stand alone status by later legislation. That will not happen here where the separation and new constitution will happen in a very brief period. I cannot imagine Westminster assuming that it had any power whatsoever to make any decision about the Scottish Constitution during Independence negotiations or after the date of independence.
I’m confused. Thought you said 5 decades earlier. Regardless, while you are entitled to your opinion I think that as a non-lawyer type person you should put a heck of a lot less confidence in your interpretation of legal matters. The Rottman case is only tangentially related to a separation referendum and I seriously doubt you can be taken authoritatively on the subject.
I can!
No British Prime Minister would put the Queen in such a position- it would create a constitutional crisis.
If the UK government tried to legislate for any Scottish matter not within the current settlement while negotiations proceeded, that too would become a constitutional crisis.
The UK government has accepted that if the Scottish people vote for independence, there is no easy legal and practical way to oppose it in International Law. The UK parliament (including Scots MPs) will have the right to express UK interests in the separation process, but will have no effective power to determine the Constitution of the Scottish State.
There is an undercurrent here of colonialist thought and a failure to consider state forming in the modern world. Things have changed in the past century. It would be instructive if people stopped looking at early twentieth century derogation of power in the British Empire and consider instead the cases of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, and other post Soviet states, and of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and the countries of former Yugoslavia.
A cite please for the ability of a predecessor state having a legal right to continue to decide constitutional matters for a successor state. We are seeing that achieved by hidden warfare in the Ukraine.
Of course the UK government could pass legislation that imposed a particular constitution on Scotland (as it could claim that the Moon was part of the UK) but nothing would then stop Scotland abrogating that immediately post independence.
Any UK legislation on Scottish constitutional matters is meaningless; reaching a compromise on relations between the two future states is negotiable, but that does not give the UK or rUK any power over the constitution of Scotland.
There are many discussions going on in the YES camp currently about what will happen if Independence is approved by a narrow margin. Should the UK start acting as a colonial power, I can see the settlement being enforced through international law rather than in a gentlemanly manner as befits modern nations.
Talk of suspending the Scottish MPs between September 2014 and March 2016 or later is going down like a lead balloon, as is any suggestion that the 2015 election be postponed.
There is an undercurrent of radicals in the SNP who believe that a campaign of civil disobedience and disruption may be necessary to achieve independence because of the deep seated colonial attitude of the UK political structure so evident in the arguments here.
I’ll be voting Yes. I’m not sure what the result of the referendum will be. Either way, I see it as a solid opportunity for the Scottish people to assert whether they wish to be an independent country or a country as part of the UK, rather than simply accepting what was chosen for them a few hundred years ago.
The idea of rUK removing British citizenship from everyone the day the votes are tallied is just ludicrous. It’s not even been suggested by anyone serious.
The Better Together campaign has so far been incredibly negative. Their inability to find any positives to concentrate on has been very off-putting to me (though presumably it’s convincing enough to some people that they keep doing it). One tactic in particular stands out: their suggestion that rUK will react to a Yes vote like a jilted teenager and deliberately do everything they can to cause financial ruin to an independent Scotland, even to the extent of harming their own economy. It’s oddly ironic that Better Together can’t envision Scotland and rUK working together as allies and friends, but there you go.
Having lived in Londonderry/Derry for a couple of years, things like different currencies, borders, working for companies based in “foreign” countries, etc don’t really worry me at all. They do cause concern for some people though. I’ve heard folk say they’ll vote No because they have a family member who works in England and that would have to stop if there was a Yes vote or that Scottish bank notes would no longer be worth anything (as in literally, they would cease to have value on 18th Sep) and they’d lose all their savings.
Those fears may not be well founded, but they do exist, which is in itself worrying.
That’s my rough take on it so far. I wouldn’t be surprised at a Yes or a No win at the moment.
That was passed because of the need to overturn legislation made on semi-independence previously.
The case in Scotland will be somewhat different and will be based on modern ideas of statehood rather than nineteenth century ones.
It would of course have been quite possible for Canada’s Government to have made a statement of right to full independence, held a referendum and then declared a new constitution. Because of their nature and respect for QEII, a more subtle way was chosen and power was devolved gradually over the best part of a century.
Of course, Canada is now free to change its constitution in any way it wants and that would be no business of the UK!
It didn’t have a whole lot to do with respect for the Queen. As I understand it, Britain had been trying to give the Canadian constitution the shove for decades, and it was a mild embarrassment every time a new British North America Act went through Parliament. But the Canadian government couldn’t come to an agreement with the provinces on how the new amendment process would work, so nothing changed.
Neither of those statements is true. It’s entirely possible for the UK to refuse independence to Scotland unless it has a constitution of which we approve, and indeed we are pretty much obliged to do that. The UK has a moral obligation to its citizens - which includes the Scots - not to allow them to have an unacceptable constitution imposed on them.
All this will probably be moot, as I very much doubt a large enough majority will vote for independence. Westminster isn’t going to let it happen on a 51% vote, regardless of what either side says now.
The Queen has remained head of state of many former British colonies because it has been politically expedient for the various Governments of the day that she do so. She is a symbol of unity, shared heritage and continuity for the Commonwealth and other states. But if a newly-independent country offered her its crown and the British PM didn’t want her to take it, she would not, as per the Rhodesia precedent noted above. The Rhodesian white minority government was at great pains to profess loyalty to the Queen in 1965-70, and insisted she was Queen of Rhodesia, but she, on advice of the British PM, did not accept or acknowledge that she was.
For more, see the Lacey book I mentioned earlier, or here: Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence - Wikipedia
So you asked for a cite, I gave you a cite but Canada was only “semi” independent in 1982. Also, as is our stereotype, we were only being polite to the Queen when we had an acrimonious national debate on the subject.
Good day to you, sir.
I am in agreement with you. I started out a decade ago as a believer in devolution as I have always been (I wanted initially stronger counties a la Redclffe Maud or regional government for the whole UK- Wessex, Yorkshire, Devonwall, Mercia etc. On moving to Scotland I supported the LibLab Government generally but voted SNP in 2007 and in every election since becasue I agree more closely with their general policies than any other party than the Greens (I am a lapsed Social Democrat). Entering the campaign I was an advocate for getting the vote over, losing it and then achieving Devomax, and then going again in a decade or so as people bacame more comfortable with a Scottish State. The campaign has turned me into a straight Independence supporter because of the Better Together campaign and the Neo-colonial attitude adopted here and elsewhere.
Even my liberal and leftist friends in England seem to have lost sight of basic democratic principle about self determination, When faced with a Scottish exit, their main concern is the negative effect it will have in the rUK. There is an undercurrent of envy in the matter with wild stories about Scotland overspending (London and the South East have the highest per capita spending and no-one complains about that!). People resent the fact that life is different here- in most ways more communitarian and libertarian, and rather than ask how England could progress like that, they resort to petty envies.
There is a concurrent blindness to the growing differences between Scotland and England- now greater than the actual difference between the states in the USA. It is not only Free Tuition fees and student grants, Free Prescriptions, no reorganisation of the health service and so on, it is also relaxed licencing laws, the fact that we have 24 hour shopping and a real right to roam and free camp. There are socialist and liberal principles in action here that are lost to England. Also lacking is a massive left/right split in politics at every level.
The longer the campaign goes on, the firmer set are my views and this is an experience shared with others in the YES campaign.
On the Last Leg comedy political show on Channel 4 the Australian presneter related a propos Scotland that when the Republic debate happened in Australia, although it was rejected as they chose a questionable system to replace the monarchy, people came out of the campaign feeling more Australian than before. The same seems to be happening here during this campaign and I think that augers well should the referendum be lost- another referendum in a decade or so would be much more likely to result in a vote for independence. The desire is going to get stronger as confidence improves.
I cannot imagine a more combustible scenario than England trying to enforce a constitution on Scotland against its will. Do you want riots on the streets?
Scotland will have spoken twice- once with a massive vote for the SNP in 2010 against all the predictions about the impossibility of single party rule under PR, and again in a referendum. How then does the UK claim to better represent the people of Scotland than their own vote.
And what would stop Scotland as a nation changing its constitution immediately to what the people wanted?
There is so much colonialism here- overt and covert. What right do you think Russia had other than military prowess over the constitutions of its successor states. Is that what you are proposing.
That would be interesting. I would say that a Scottish Government, freely elected in 2010, desiring independence and a majority in a referendum would be quite sufficient to lead to a bloody exit if England tried to impose its will against the expressed wish of the Scottish people.
Colonialism again!