Should Scotland be an independent country?

It's the opposite, the UK as a member of the EU always had control of its laws, money and borders - that it did not was a fiction.

I disagree with this part of Dammit's argument. The UK didn't have effective control of EU Directives being implemented in UK law. These automatically became law. Judges had to interpret in their favour. Denning's dissenting opinion quoted above asserted Parliament's authority but this (to my knowledge) was never exercised. My key point is that to understand the impact of EU law it's necessary to look at the arguments about its implementation. In my view this was never entirely settled. To summarise, I disagree with always above.

I also disagree with the argument that because the UK was a member of the EU then EU law was almost UK law. EU directives are drafted by the Commission and approved by the Parliament and Council. The UK had 73 MEPs in a parliament of 751.

You are of course free to disagree, but you're clearly and demonstrably wrong.

I'm trying to think of a way of putting this.

Problem with this is in the process of simplifying something complex to stop bad-faith actors like h_r you end up losing meaning, or even changing it - see the countless comparisons of UK to household finances.

Put simply: that we could and did agree to be bound by the rules, and that we could and did then say that we did not wish to be and left, shows that we at all times maintained sovereignty. We pooled it with others for a while (over 40 years), and during that time we either did what we'd agreed to do, or we got taken to court to make us do it - Denning was wrong to assert that Parliament could over-rule EU law when Parliament had already said that it would not. See the IMB for a modern re-run of this, and the absolutely universal opinion (apart from our AG, for obvious but desperately sad reasons) that this was illegal.

But I suspect you know this and are arguing in bad faith, which means you'll ignore the fact that although we had 73 MEP's decisions in the European Parliament went our way almost all the time. Some of that is that we saw the way that the wind was blowing of course, but we had huge influence - were one of the big three who drove the EU agenda.

Now? Now we can't explain to Scotland why it would want to stay, and the best we have is denying a referendum or telling the Scots that they're too thick and poor to survive without us.

Here's an interesting wrinkle - if it looked like Scotland was going to do it, break away and rejoin the EU then I'd roll the dice, move up there. I'd take my tax contributions with me, and if enough people who wanted to be EU citizens did the same then I suspect tax income would be somewhat healthier. Who knows what that'd look like in reality, but there's a lot of strong feeling about what's been taken from us by bigots and spivs. if only it didn't rain so much.

I’ll bite...

I might consider changing my views on self determination once the following things are completed -

Change first past the post to proportional representation.

Abolish the House of Lords.

A wholesale reimagining of what it means to be British that isn’t based on whiteness and former dreams of Empire.

Signing up to the EU Tax avoidance treaty.

Abolition of tax havens.

Cessation of military imperialism and uni lateral military interventions overseas.

How’s that for starters?

I have a spare room, you’d be made welcome.

Vote for baz.

I agree with all of that! Bugger...

if only it didn't rain so much

Easy solution to that - mt500 kit on 320 days a year

I'd take my tax contributions with me, and if enough people who wanted to be EU citizens did the same then I suspect tax income would be somewhat healthier.

Absolutely agree. I would bet that theres many many other folk who share the same sentiment.

Please add:

Withdrawal from illegal occupation of northern Ireland.

Apology (at least) for slave trade

Reparations to Africa, India etc

Abolition of monarchy

Abolition of monarchy

Nothing astounds me more than the fact we still have a monarchy :(

Is this a safe space? I have something to admit, I quite fancy a young Princess Anne

young Princess Anne

Ha!!
Was just recently, while watching The Crown, that my wife told me I should google a young Princess Anne after I mentioned what a poor resemblance the actress had, turned out I was wrong.

+1 here

Apology (at least) for slave trade

Surely Nicola S is perfectly capable of doing that on behalf of Scotland at the moment, no?

Or maybe she did and I missed it, in which case, good on her.

the UK as a member of the EU always had control of its laws, money and borders

The UK did not have control of its own laws. Denning's dissenting opinion stated above (see McCarthys Ltd v Smith - link below) was approved by the ECJ following an appeal from the HoL, who had ruled Ms Smith had no claim because the EC treaties could not be used as an aid to interpreting UK law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macarthys_Ltd_v_Smith

The question of sovereignty is moot in the UK. The royal prerogative and the principle that parliament cannot bind parliament (see Dicey - link below) and Madzimbamuto v Lardner-Burke (link below) are what Denning and his colleagues from 1972 to 2020 wrestled with in terms of EU membership. To claim that Denning was wrong shows a lack of understanding both of EU law and the UK constitution.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmeuleg/633ii/633we02.htm#:~:text=4.,%2D40)%20was%20as%20follows%3A&text=Parliament%20may%20by%20statute%20make,to%20uphold%20and%20enforce%20it.%20was%20as%20follows%3A&text=Parliament%20may%20by%20statute%20make,to%20uphold%20and%20enforce%20it.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madzimbamuto_v_Lardner-Burke

I am enjoying the way you keep posting irrelevant bollocks about EU law when you have a child’s understanding of devolved and reserved powers. Please keep it up

Look forward to the adult view.. What exactly are the devolved and reserved powers you refer to?

And they head north in the middle of a pandemic while infected and get followed by the idiot offspring in a tartan scarf to rally the troops. Hussar.

I look forward to you answering a straight question about the pretendy history and cultural cringe? Is it too difficult?

This

McCarthys Ltd v Smith

But in the bit of the judgment quoted, he acknowledges that parliament could pass a law that contradicts EU law. However, in the absence of a clear and express intention written in by Parliament EU law could be used to interpret UK law.

That does not prove your point.

I assume he means Tartan and ginger wigs, etc.

But the same goes for any country.

Look at our pretendy history in relation to the Empire being based solely on trade, or more recently our soft writing-out of the Soviet Union from defeating Germany in WW2 in favour of the USA.

I have given up - I ask “what colour is a daffodil flower?”, the response I get “daffodils are flowers”.

Which makes a very clear point, to those with the wit to understand it.

And underlines the tragedy of Brexit and why the Brexists have only negatives to induce the Scots to stay.

I've not watched a legal argument conducted by wikipedia reference for a while. It's fun, in a way... Not sure it's going to get anyone (whether the person making the point or those that it's meant to persuade) very far though.

I've only experienced EU law in one area of practice, and so have a limited frame of reference for this, but in that field we had very considerable influence on its content.

If moving to another country didn't mean starting at the bottom of my field again, I'd go to Ireland or an independent Scotland that was part of the EU without a second thought.

That thing where you claim ‘your’ culture is more worthy than ‘others culture’ is one of foundations of white supremacy.

It’s been my experience that those most invested in union generally harbour these types of bias and prejudices once you start to dig a little.

Once they realise this they tend to go red in the face and spit when they talk. That mismatch between who they think they are and who they actually are just doesn’t compute for them.

You’ll never get an actual answer to this, just hunners of deflection and some sealioning and links to EU law. 😂

😂😂👍