SNP/Scottish Cabbage Proposal to Give Everybody the Vote
Missed by several news outlets today is the "Electoral Franchise Bill" which appears in the SNP's new "Legislative Programme" for the coming session of Holyrood.
This is a hugely relevant and highly revolutionary Bill, which would up-end Parliamentary Democracy, as presently understood in the Western World.
In the UK – and to our knowledge – in every country in the world, voting at national elections and referendums is based around the concept of "national citizenship".
Voting anywhere in the UK is based around "British Citizenship". If you are a British citizen, you can vote at every election and referendum in the UK.
Being able to vote is a privilege of having national citizenship. It helps to make national citizenship a worthwhile thing to have, or to aim to acquire.
If you are a newcomer, then becoming a citizen gives you the legal privilege of voting in its elections. It is one of the legal benefits of committing yourself to the country.
Controversially (and unknown to most people), citizens of European Union countries are also allowed to vote (for now) at every election in the UK (other than the British General Election, and UK-wide referendums overseen by Westminster). There are also various allowances, for historical reasons, for citizens of the Irish Republic and Commonwealth countries.
As we say, voting is based on the legal concept of "being a citizen", primarily of the UK.
However, there is a world-wide extreme-leftist movement to break the connection between voting and national citizenship.
These are people who don't believe in the idea of "national citizenship" at all.
They say we are all, "citizens of the world", and they don't believe in the idea of "borders" (unless it is their own front door or bedroom window, in which case they suddenly believe in borders very much).
They believe that voting in a country's elections should be open to anyone; and absolutely regardless of whether they possess any formal "national citizenship" of that particular place; and regardless of how long they have lived in that particular place; and regardless of whether they are committed to the long-term interests of that place in the first place; and even whether they are legally resident there, or not!
It is an anarchistic, nihilistic ideology which has, as its goal, the destruction of the very idea of the Nation-State.
If you can make national citizenship a pointless thing – which gives no benefits or privileges – then it is only a short step to making the whole idea of "national citizenship" irrelevant, and with that, making the whole idea of "the Nation", a pointless thing.
The Scottish Cabbages are Promoting this
In Scotland, not surprisingly, the prime proponents of this aggressively hippy, and physically dangerous, attitude are the soggy Scottish Cabbages – otherwise known as "the Greens".
The Scottish Cabbage Party has (somehow) prevailed upon the Scottish National Party to introduce a Bill to this effect in the forthcoming session at Holyrood.
It probably wasn't difficult.
After all, the SNP are aggressively opposed to the idea of British Citizenship too. They want to render it pointless too, and so this policy fits their agenda nicely.
Objectively though, it could easily backfire on their ambition of a separate "Scottish citizenship". Objectively, it is not the sort of thing that one would normally expect from a party professing to be "Scottish National".
In any case, all this illustrates the extent to which Scottish Nationalism has fallen into the hands of the extreme-loony tendency.
And it just shows how much the Scottish Cabbage Tail is nodding the head of this particular Nationalist Dog.
What Will this Bill Mean?
If this Bill were to pass it would mean that...at any Scottish Parliament or Council Election, then anyone could vote – not just British citizens (and for the time being, European Union citizens) and certain exceptions.
It would mean – anybody resident in Scotland could vote; regardless of who you are, regardless of how long you've lived here, regardless of how long you intend to live here, and regardless of your commitment (expressed by taking up British citizenship) to the UK, and Scotland in particular. You could be an asylum seeker, an illegal immigrant, a criminal in jail. Everybody gets to vote so long as they can show an address somewhere in Scotland!
Furthermore, it would also mean that if there were to be a second separation referendum, and if the British government of the day did what David Cameron did and devolved all authority to Holyrood, then Holyrood would be free to choose this Franchise.
That would mean that everybody resident in Scotland could vote on whether or not to break up Britain!
(According to The Herald, 5-9-18: "there are around 380,000 non-British nationals living in Scotland – 235,000 from the EU who currently have the vote, and 142,000 non-EU who don't. Tom Gordon, "Electorate will include anyone living in country", p.4)
How Did the SNP Acquire this Mad Power?
We have to go back to 2014.
Immediately after the No campaign won a significant victory, the Daily Record's "Vow" had already queered the pitch and laid a trap for unionism. The "Vow" required unionism to deliver to the SNP, if not independence, then at least a significant number of massive anti-union concessions.
Of course, unionism was to get nothing in return!
So, the Smith Commission was set up to decide how many "more powers" to submit to the SNP.
It was a cross-party group with 10 members – two from each of the parties including the SNP and Scottish Cabbages.
One of the proposals it recommended was the devolution of the Franchise for Scottish Parliamentary and Council Elections!
This was an appallingly stupid and dangerous idea which was signed off by the 6 members of the nominally "unionist" parties.
The very guilty people were: Adam Tomkins and Annabel Goldie (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party), Iain Gray and Gregg McClymont (Scottish Labour Party), Tavish Scott and Michael Moore, currently residing in the "Where is he Now" category (Scottish Liberal Democrats).
As usual, we at A Force For Good saw all these dangers clearly...from a mile off!
We had previously prepared a document, Devo Danger (Feb 2014), warning against the proposals of "more powers", and setting out a range of principles upon which any discussion should ensue. You can read it here.
After the Smith Commission sent its (awful) proposals to Westminster, we prepared a 20-page document entitled Dissolving not Devolving: A Scotland Bill Briefing Alert (Nov 2015). We sent hard-copies to hundreds of MPs and Lords warning against the dangers of many of the proposals, including the huge and very obvious danger of devolving the "Management of Elections and the Franchise" (page 13) to, effectively, the SNP!
Of course, we were ignored!
Of course, we have been proven 100% correct!
What is Going to Happen Now?
We should emphasise that this is a proposed Bill.
It has yet to be debated. If it is debated, then it might not pass.
But for it to fall, then there will have to be enough sensible people remaining in the SNP to vote against it! Are there? Who knows! Possibly not!
We have to presume that nobody in the Conservative Party will vote for it. Is that a safe presumption these days considering that their main constitutional spokesman today was actually one of the people on the Smith Commission who delivered this disaster?
However, it would also require nobody in the Labour Party or Lib Dems to vote for it.
Will these parties have enough constitutional sense to see the dangers? Do they even understand what we're talking about? Who knows! Possibly not!
Anyway, now that we are aware of this coming madness, we can keep an eye on it!
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