The news really is a load of balls these days. The news is absolutely full of it,cricket ball tampering that is. It is almost as if it were a matter of extreme importance which has to be given precedence over everything else.
Then we have Bungling Boris being accused of sexism because he called the Labour shadow foreign secretary by her married title rather than the name she chooses to call herself.
We have an on going saga about these awful Russians seemingly making an attack on Britain and being accused of using a nerve agent which seemingly can only come from Russia to bump off one their former spies who had turned into a double agent but released in a spy swop previously. This has turned into a European wide expulsion of diplomats from all sides.
The EU has had an issue with Russia for a while now, so it has only been too keen to jump on the bandwagon. Yet the EU has consistently refused to deal with the fascist actions of Spain in relation to Catalonia.
All of it is really just political ball tampering set to disguise and deflect from real issues which both Westmister and the EU wish to deflect us from. It is a case of…look at this hand, not the other one which is stuffing a card up its sleeve.
I suppose there is only so much Brexit nonsense which we can take, but one thing for sure, the public is being shafted once again. Cambridge analytica is merely the sacrificial lamb, the real players are the governments and big business, and they have been at this game for much longer and to a far greater extent. Just look at the Scotland Office massive increase of expenditure and personnel since 2014, and their extensive use of facebook and twitter alongside their press and media releases.
One conclusion all this has led me to is that I am no longer interested in an Independent Scotland remaining in the EU, we would much better be served following Norway into EFTA and making our own course.
If you want your Fake news? Just watch what Westminster is directing at us.
It is nearly all Balls.
Auld Acquaintance 
Hi Auld Acquaintance, nice to see you back blogging 😉
Having been enthusiastically “for” the EU for many years, I have to now agree with you that EFTA may be a more suitable organisation for an independent Scotland. The recent failure of the EU to take any action at all against Spain over its treatment of Catalonia has led me to question the nature of those who run it. On top of that, the individual EU nations, with the exception of Finland, and I think Croatia, have done absolutely nothing whilst the Spanish bully-boys club their way through Catalonia and its democratically elected parliamentarians. I don’t want to be part of an EU that refuses to denounce these new-fascists and their twisted “rule of law”, nor to impose sanctions on Madrid.
I don’t know. I’m certainly disappointed that the EU hasn’t done anything about Spain yet.
But EFTA… its members take the EU’s rules without much say in the process. If Scotland went into EFTA, we certainly would not be able to put our national veto, our state’s vote and our MEPs on the side of reforming the EU. With full membership, we would have more actual input into the EU than we do in the United Kingdom.
It also seems slightly like a cop-out to me. You want the benefits of the single market, etc., but want to opt-out of accepting a share of the responsibility for where the EU is going next.
Ultimately, the problem with the EU’s inaction over Spain(and let’s not forget Poland’s judiciary issues) is that it simply doesn’t have the power to interfere in a member state’s affairs. It needs more to do that. As of now, there is only one lever available – Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty, which allows the EU to suspend SOME of a member state’s rights only with an UNANIMOUS vote from all other member states.
I agree that lever is wholly inadequate. It’s too radical a step to be used for a first move and doesn’t goes far enough if disregarded.
Which leaves the question – what powers are we willing to give the EU to sort Spain out? Bear in mind that no matter how good our intentions are at the moment, anti-state powers we hand to the EU might well be deployed against us in the future. I personally am not prepared to give the EU any more until it’s more directly accountable to its citzens, rather than the member states’ governments.
Great to see you back!
I, like you, am reluctantly becoming increasingly anti-EU membership for an independent Scotland.