Friday 27 June 2014

A PETITION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Submitted Jun 23. Accompanied by letters to 2 offices of the European Commission because they are responsible to have a position too.

TO WITHHOLD ACCEPTANCE OF LEGITIMACY FROM AN INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND UNLESS THE REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN MADE MOST VOTERS AWARE OF A CITIZENSHIP QUESTION AFFECTING FREE MOVEMENT: AND TO PUBLICISE THIS BEFORE THE POLL.

A petition on the EU's dealings with an independent Scotland if one results from the present referendum.

To urge that the EU and its institutions should not recognise the referendum as legitimately mandating and fairly conducted, and should deal with a new Scottish state on that basis in all its relations with it, if a question on citizenship does not receive a scale of media coverage in the referendum campaign so as to make overwhelmingly most voters aware that the question exists. This question is: whether applications for Scottish citizenship by descent, through a parent or grandparent, with the descent evidenced in any way at all, will or will not be refusable.

This has a bearing on the principle of free movement which is a defining concern of the EU. It could affect who is allowed to live here if united travel areas break down, and entitlement to public services. To make citizenship through a parent refusable appears inhumanely to breach ECHR article 8 on family life, by its potential to divide close family members in these ways.

Persons who have moved from Scotland within either the EU or UK did not anticipate such a threat to their offspring's citizenship position. It would be a bad precedent for the EU, conflicting with its nature as a union, to accept silently this occurring in any country.

It is an unfair distortion of national self-determination for voters to be unaware and uninformed that they are voting to remove the absolute unrefusable entitlement to residence here and citizenship, from their own or other families and a part of their society. Voters led to assume that no such prospect can exist, because their media select to be oblivious to it and the campaigns on both sides select not to address it, have not mandated it. They have not mandated the whole choice on statehood that includes it.

To date, this is the situation. The following supporting information evidences so, and that a position from the EU on its dealings and relations with Scotland, taken before the poll, could compel there to be sufficient scale publicising of the question to avert an illegitimately uninformed vote and the EU's difficulty of relating to a state created by that.

Tuesday 17 June 2014

the popular will

news.stv.tv/scotland-decides/news/279363-survey-finds-more-scots-want-trident-to-stay-than-go-after-yes-vote/ Opinion Poll More want to keep Trident!! So much for Eck telling the pulse of public opinion.

There is something very unclear, very smoke and mirrors, about the new draft constitution they are consulting on. Because the consultation actually ends after the vote, so that it will presumably just have to be abandoned if No wins, none of the draft's contents are commitments or policies when we vote. this is particularly agonising to remember in relation to citizenship, where perhaps prodded by voter concerns about the diaspora, they have now used the word "entitlement" in relation to citizenship by descent, and having a "claim" to citizenship. Trouble is, this only refers to forms of descent which are not specified, in this draft they don't specify any details of how citizenship by descent would work, so it does not attach these words to the White Paper policy on parental and grandparental descent. "if either of their parents meets requirements set out in law" and "another connection with Scotland as set out further in law". Also left open for the constitution writers is what the "prescribed procedures" for applying will be. So it still remains that they need to say, and until they say it they have not said it, that applications on parental and grandparental descent evidenced in any way at all will not be refusable.

Friday 13 June 2014

oh but how negative.

Interesting discovery from Tariq Ali's meeting in Kirkcaldy yesterday. In 1995 Bermuda voted No to independence.

It still has a colonial status, not a full inclusion in Britain including voting for its government as Scotland has. Indy is still unpopular there. The reason why - is visa rights into the EU.

Creating new barriers would mean new barriers to their own movement in this racially carved up divided world. It would put a barrier between them and a freedom it strongly matters to them to have, of access to other places. Much the same reason, borders and barriers, as for voting No here.

Yet the cybernats often say no other country has ever voted no and oh it would be pathetic and negative. No! it would be caring about inclusion and access across open borders, sensible and progressive.

Thursday 12 June 2014

I hope this answers your query

Never stronger time to feel furious as a voter than when pointedly told that the MSP hopes a quite long full reply answers you, and of course it does not. Because amid the effusion of other details making the reply look fulsome and worked on, your actual question has not been answered. That is spivvy. It must never slip past your notice.

Nowhere does the following reply from Colin Keir, SNP, say that qualifying applications for citizenship by descent WILL NOT BE REFUSABLE. NOWHERE. So you would have to be easily led to be shifted from voting No by this reply:

" You ask specifically about the matter of citizenship and seem to be, rightly in my view, concerned about the impact on immigration and citizenship of the UKIP agenda being followed by the Westminster focussed parties. As an SNP MSP I support an inclusive Scotland that as an independent nation will seek to welcome those who want to come to Scotland to contribute and be part of our society. As a country with an aging population Scotland needs to attract working age people to become citizens and contribute to the national economy. Therefore the Scottish Government proposes the following should the electorate vote for Independence in September,

An inclusive model of citizenship – current British Citizens habitually resident in Scotland will be considered Scottish citizens; others, following independence, can apply on grounds of descent if they have a parent or grandparent who qualifies for Scottish citizenship; those with a demonstrable connection to Scotland through living here for at least 10 years; migrants on qualifying visas will have the option of applying for naturalisation as a Scottish citizen. The Scottish Government will accept dual citizenship; indeed this is common in the current situation with many people throughout Scotland and the rest of the UK holding dual citizenship. There will still be the situation where nationals of other countries come to Scotland and do not take out citizenship here as is the case at present they will be covered by visas and treaties allowing them to live and work here.

I hope that this reply answers your query. "

As regards my effort to extract an answer about unrefusable citizenship through the campaign registering system, he has defined the system to avoid that. Though the question was about campaigning for a No vote unless a change on the citizenship position happens:

"Campaign groups will define where they sit in the debate (Yes or No) based on their desired referendum outcome. While there may be policy differences within the various groups that make up either side they will have chosen to support Yes or No as their preferred future for Scotland. If an organisation is not campaigning straightforwardly for a Yes or No vote I would not expect them to have to register with the Electoral Commission. For instance there will be a number of organisations that have views on the matters raised and will take part in discussions and debates but will not campaign for one side or the other."

Monday 9 June 2014

room 101

It happens to be 101 days to go. The unanimous agreement to treat it as 100 today instead of tomorrow, as if Tuesdays are uncool, gives you no confidence in the campaign's relation to facts.

Total journalistic failiure by Radio Scotland's phone in this morning. They let the Yes speaker use emigration as an argument and talk of encouraging emigrants to return, without challenging him a shred in any way with the question of whether citizenship for our emigrants' children will be refusable. With Yes's betrayal of the diaspora. Do you still take seriously the common assumption that BBC is biased to No?????

Iain Macwhirter, ranting with less objectivity and more personal emotion than ever in the Sunday Herald yesterday about "who believes this stuff?" in relation to the No campaign, is still being allowed to get away with saying nothing about why he, being exile born, is a Yes supporter and is not making any fuss towards Yes on behalf of the exile born, to prevent betrayal of their citizenship and of the automatic right to live here that they have under the union.

Jun 11,, 99 days to go: The following bias challenge made to the BBC about that phone-in:

" c9:58 the Yes speaker was left unchallenged when he commented on the emigration rate from Scotland and encouraging expats to return.

Never in the entire programme was it mentioned, let alone the Yes side questioned on it, by either the presenter or a caller, that their citizenship policy does not guarantee unrefusable citizenship to the children of emigrants, to Scots born outside Scotland - those of them who neither chance to live here on independence day nor to be born after that date to a parent holding Scottish citizenship at the time. If they fall into either of those groups their citizenship is automatic. All the rest have a provision to "register" for citizenship, evidencing their descent, and ever since the White Paper came out, no Yes source will say to any voter enquiry that these applications will not be refusable. Alex Neil told the Yes meeting at Tynecastle High School, Edinburgh, on Mar 12 that it will be refusable. Nickola Paul, Policy Officer on Migration + Citizenship, told me by email May 27 that "any discretionary elements" in the citizenship policy, and even the evidence required of applicants, will only be decided after the referendum!

Willingness to divide families, against ECHR article 8, by excluding Scots from their own country for the chance of an exiled birth, is an obvious practical obstacle of family life against any encouraging expats to return. Bias that no BBC coverage at all has mentioned this issue's existence or questioned Yes on it.