within 3 days of losing they rewrite the rules

Referendums are part of our constitution for any change in the governing system big enough to be a constitutional change. That has been well established since the 90s, since the present post-Thatcher wave of constitutional reform got going - but the precedent's establishing can be traced back to the first EU referendum in 1975. For which Tony Benn, though his side lost that vote, was credited with adding referendums to our constitution.

3 days after losing this referendum, Salmond and Sillars are talking of dropping the need to have one, and considering an election win for pro-indy parties in 2016 to establish secession on its own. No longer want to have to hold a referendum after the experience of losing this one.

It is neither legal to declare UDI, nor constitutional to do it only 20 months after losing a referendum. If they actually do this, the population of Scotland will be put in a civil war type dilemma between which state to hold is legit here and to affiliate to. Will we end up like Cyprus with populations fleeing to either side of a green wall or getting trapped in a rogue state against their will with loss of international rights?

To suddenly write of such prospects evokes disbelief in peaceful familiar Britain - so remember nobody imagined the Northern Ireland troubles before they slipped into them very quickly. We have lived through exceptional days of constitutional instability recently and now we have 20 months' notice to take a position on the rights and wrongs of ref losers announcing a unilateral constitutional change abolishing what they lost only 3 days after they lost it. This is getting mad. This is not a democratic movement this is getting ever more fanatical on the tide of mob emotion they stirred up. As the dream falls from their hands, they clutch out after it.

www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/salmond-we-don-t-need-referendum-for-independence-1-3548270
www.express.co.uk/news/uk/513637/Salmond-s-plan-for-indy-coup-as-he-claims-independence-possible-without-new-poll?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+daily-express-uk-news+(Daily+Express+%3A%3A+UK+Feed)

Trust it to be Sillars, the most extreme and racist of the leading nat voices, the same one as made that threat against No-voting businessfolks before the poll. That they lost, by a bigger margin than the polls had said, indicating there was a shy No's effect or a drawing back from the brink like in Quebec, was a morally great statement for democracy against intimidation and peer pressure. Long to be commemorated.

Never again, "for at least a generation", will voting SNP feel like a normal party choice. From now on it will be a vote for the intimidatory movement who frightened the country out of putting "No" posters in their windows then who began hunting for ways round democracy within 3 days after they lost.

Britain has clear notice of the nats' ravings, anyway. 20 months to prevent an illegal civil rebellion and a drift into violent troubles.

"Alex Salmond lost. It is not for him to try to overthrow the will of the Scottish people in some sort of coup." - Johann Lamont

the court change reaches Central Africa

Another update on the court change.

The Central African Republic accuses Chad of an intervention a role in causing a coup there. Because that is a cross border legal dispute that overlaps between Chad and the CAR, and because the court change is already claimable by the people of Chad, this is all it takes to establish that the court change now applies to the CAR too. This is how easily folks all over the world can help each other to get the court change.

Yes this does have something abstractly to do with Scotland: the question why don't we fear independence leading to a political culture where coups can happen? if that is what happened when new states were created in Africa without a bedded in deterrent balance of estates of power to fix democracy in place. It has to do with interdependence, with all Europe's multi-country institutions and our interests tied in to them, that have worked for all the countries to keep each other democratic. Made democracy stick in Germany, where it had only ever had one terribly economically flopped 13 year period of democracy before its present state was set up in 1949, and that was all East Germany had ever had before 1990. Made it stick in Greece which had a coup as recently as 1967, in Spain which had a coup attempt as recently as 1981, with no more such events since they have been in the EU. Slovakia went in an authoritarian direction after its independence in 1993 and was pulled back again when it was pulled into having interests in joining the EU in 2004.

On neither side of our referendum is the picture comfortable or safe. We are being asked to be all light heartedly feelgood over our future at a time of the most heightened starkness since the European institutions have been around that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We are being asked to vote Yes by a Scottish government capable of introducing a charge for criminal defence even when it confirms your innocence, we are being asked to vote No by a British government talking of withdrawal from the whole European Convention on Human Rights. It's the way the British level political culture has swung, into racism and manipulated anti-European feeling calculated to make society more authoritarian, that is by far the more dangerous and worth avoiding course at present. The more of a referendum issue can be made out of the contrast, and out of Scotland intending to stay anchored to structures of interdependence that make it difficult for countries to dump democracy, the more the Yes side can be grilled on the criminal defence costs policy's total contradiction of the best looking reason at present for voting Yes.