David Mundell ensures disaster for Scotland

Do you remember in 2016 David Mundell said

And we should remember the underlying benefits Scotland derives from the European Union.

Our access to the single market of 500 million people reduces costs for Scottish businesses by removing barriers to an export market, currently worth around £11.6 billion.

It secures jobs. The Wilson Review of Support for Scottish Exporting, concluded that over 330,000 jobs in Scotland depend on EU trade;

And it is vital to our tourism industry too, an industry that provides over 10 per cent of total jobs in Scotland.

1.5 million inbound visitors to Scotland from the EU in 2014 spent around £770 million in our country.

And EU residents made up over half of all foreign visits to Scotland.

Our outstanding Scottish Higher Education Institutions are the recipients of important EU support.

And the Scotch Whisky Association – which represents an industry whose exports generate £3.95 billion for the UK balance of trade – has written to the UK Government to say that they believe it is in the national interest for the UK to remain an EU member.

There are clear benefits for Scotland in our continued membership of a reformed European Union, focused on competitiveness and extending the single market.

These are the freedoms which EU memberships gives us.

The freedom to trade and to travel.

The freedom to work for European firms.

The freedom to help write the rules which govern Europe.

The freedom which our size and clout gives us to shape the future of a continent which has always and will always affect our lives here in Britain.

He has now ensured Scotland has left the EU and the transition period will end on 31st December. He still cannot say what form the border post between Cairnryan and Larne will take.

He has ensured that we have all lost the freedom to move, live and work in twenty seven countries.

Never believe a word Mundell utters.

Mundell has built a wall.

Blue Monday, Reggae Thursday -Indyref2 will wait a day

No Caribbean heritage here. We think probably some Irish a few generations back but pretty solid Scottish stock. Something in the blood about stirring to the sound of the pipes, or the pride in your wee country of lochs and glens even if you were brought up amongst Glasgow tarmac and red sandstone tenements. Above all, you know your place. By all means be successful and happy but never shout about it or get too confident. Just take your example from your national football team. A good result against the likes of Germany fine, but here comes San Marino to keep your feet on the ground.

Blue Monday – the worst day of the year. Credit card Christmas statement, barely light by 8.00 and as the day is wet, or worse, simply dreich, its dark by 4.00. January still some way to go. Then we have a Conservative mini Trump in power at Westminster, a maxi Trump in Washington with apparently some say over our future climate, a media largely controlled by direction from outside Scotland, not to mention bush fires, volcanic eruptions, war in Yemen supported by British arms etc etc. We watch and we feel so powerless at every level as the super-rich and super-powerful control our future from the safety of the Swiss mountain hideaway of Davos. And as for Indy ref 2!! No, you can’t! as the Facebook pages, the blogs, the twitter feeds (those outside the mainstream media) extol screeds of injustices and reasons why Scotland should take a hold of its own destiny and do so much better for everyone living here.

You don’t just have to be Scottish to be blue on this Monday but it helps to experience and wallow in the full deep blue mindset.

Monday staggers through to Thursday with unrelenting dreichness. Even the Harry and Meghan soap is still rumbling on, and BBC Scotland continues to hammer the Health Service in Scotland and now ramps up attacks on Education as they follow the Carlaw ‘Let’s get Nicola’ plan.

Thursday in Dumfries and Galloway, but today a new approach. No radio news, please. No Good Morning or Reporting Scotland, no glancing at the newspaper headlines in the newsagent – all I want is a Mars Bar. No Facebook, no Twitter ( not even a wee peek) no Instagram. It’s a Spotify day. Reggae Hits. That will do nicely. A touch of the Caribbean sun via Brixton, a walk in the park with the dogs, maybe even read a book. Just for one day the world has gone away. Did Trump nuke North Korea today? Did Boris Johnson admit to deceiving the electorate or did he promise to start HS2 in Inverness today thus knocking five minutes off commuting time to Dingwall? We just won’t know until tomorrow. This is a refreshment day. If you are lucky and able to do this, then try it. We all know a long road lies ahead to self-determination for Scotland but IndyRef2 will wait just a day. Come back lifted, able to put things in perspective and importantly more focussed than ever. You can get it if you really want – Jimmy Cliff Reggae Classics

Beware the strategy of division.

For regular Daily Mail readers – you may have stumbled on the wrong blog, but if you consciously have chosen to read this blog as well as the Mail – good on you. You are remarkable in your ability to embrace diversity of thought. This blog is normally read by people who lean towards the concept of Scotland being a totally normal country in that it is governed by the people who live in the country. There are many in Dumfries and Galloway in particular who don’t share this view but we would like to think that in a democracy, if the majority in Scotland now want to move to self-governance, then that is the way Scotland will go.

Why write about Daily Mail readers, the British Royal family and indeed the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (strangely also called the Earl and Countess of Dumbarton) and commonly referred to as Harry and Meghan – H and M? We know H and M are causing a bit of a stushie at the moment. They want out from the family responsibilities but maybe not necessarily the lifestyle. The Mail is incandescent and has decided that this story warrants half their news coverage. That is its choice and only their continuing sales can determine whether this is the correct decision or not.

What has all of this got to do with the readers of the YesAnnandale blog? This is a question which illustrates how this topic of the Royal Family can and will be used as a divisive tool against the Yes community. Historically, opinion polls have indicated that the Royal Family is held in much less regard in Scotland than in England. But there is a range of opinion, as with most things. This is the crunch – it does not matter if you are a royalist, a republican, a ‘couldn’t care lesser’, a Daily Mailer, a Corbynite, a flat earther or whatever. If you sincerely believe that Scotland should decide its own future then that is what counts. Decisions on being a Republic or not or which currency to use or our relationship with Europe are for the people of Scotland to decide after we have self-determination. We must not let people who wish to divide and dilute the Yes aim, use specific issues, where there is room for legitimate debate, to muddy the water. A future Scotland will decide how it moves forward. There will be differences on many aspects of how a modern country should run and prosper. That is natural and healthy and, above all, normal. So we concentrate on that first hurdle of self-determination, and the rest will follow naturally as the country evolves.

Britain’s Sell By Date

Maybe it was of a time. Maybe it had a purpose. Certainly it suited many to use the concept of a world power, and history tells us about the days of Britannia ruling the waves and the sun never setting on Britain’s Empire. There were dark days and there were good days but through whatever prism we view the past we are now here in the present. We cannot change the past; we can only influence the present and look forward to today’s actions in turn influencing the future.

In the cycles of history, Britain (or more correctly Great Britain and Northern Ireland) arguably has long passed its BEST BEFORE date and is fast approaching its SELL BY date .

As we leave the EU we move into a time of change and examination of the role of the UK in the world. and how we want to be governed. Nothing is now as it was, so it’s a good time for us in Scotland to take a step to the side and look at our options. There is an option to restock with the same product mix. Four countries with different needs which do whatever the biggest country says. Although it’s not quite as simple as that, as the biggest country is riven by political polarisation, governed by an elite and currently run by a rich versus the rest and spun by a compliant media as ‘one nation’ . There is no evidence that this in-fighting, inequality, inward and backward looking country that currently is England, will change. There are too many vested interests for that to happen.

So as the SELL BY date approaches and we trade as a US satellite, what else can we do? We in Scotland look to our small north-European neighbours. With fewer resources than Scotland they are doing pretty well. Take Denmark or Iceland or Ireland or Sweden or Norway or Estonia and you see countries with more equality, better services, better happiness ratings, and a higher standard of living overall. Some are in the EU and some are not which is worthy of note. They exist in an inter- connected world and they are successful without any hang ups of size and imaginary world power status.

Of course they all have one thing in common – the people who live in these countries determine how their countries are run. It’s their country and they decide the country’s present and future. It seems blindingly obvious, doesn’t it! The country you want to live in should be governed by the people in that country.

We are the crossroads. Our initial priority in Annandale and throughout Scotland is not to be an independent country. Our real priority is to confirm the right of the people of Scotland to determine their own future and then we will decide the way we want to go. It’s a pretty basic concept.

The visible is the shoreline of the invisible

No amount of deep and thoughtful sayings can help us see the future. Now that we have a Trump Lite PM in Westminster with a clear majority for the next five years nobody, least of all Mr Johnson, can predict anything. Locally we have the ultimate follow my leader in our constituency for the next five years as well.

There is really no point in Annandale in fighting the electorate’s decision in London nor in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale. That will waste energy and really not move us forward one centimetre with the people who really can change our future – the former No’s who are open to reason and becoming more open to persuasion.

So this is it. We pause after the events of late 2019 then we go forward. Let’s simply consign Mr Mundell into a predictable irrelevance in terms of independence and concentrate on the progress the Yes movement can make in 2020.

Believing in the future of an independent Scotland is normal and you don’t have to be an SNP supporter to have that belief. We have to promote Yes through a vision of what Scotland can be. We have to be positive in our thoughts and our language. We have to share the way forward as the best for everyone and we have to show that Scotland is an open international country where every citizen is important.

We will be assailed by clever negative sound bites. We will read papers and on line stuff that are simply just lies and we will be up against hard British and English nationalists who are inward and backward looking . We will hear tales of borders and currency and chaos. We will encounter situations which nobody has heard of yet. Our strength is that we have the breadth of the people of Scotland with us. The creative, the dedicated, the talented, the hard workers. It’s that breadth of support which will carry us through.

See that horizon – that’s where the unknown becomes known. We are preparing to take as many of our fellow citizens with us even in the challenging environment of Annandale. In Indyref2 every Yes vote will count. Let’s start today to pick up the open and the uncommitted, and go forward.

Relax it’s Christmas. 2020 will come soon enough.

For some it will be a magic time of carrots left for Rudolph, listening for sleigh bells at three in the morning and a general suspension of reality. For some it will be a little fractious with the family confined to one room as the rain and wind assault the windows. For some it will be a time of focus on loneliness and for others it will be an excuse to enjoy a young Julie Andrews appearing over the mountains in glorious technicolour (well, we do have the highest number of older people in Scotland!). At least in Annandale we live in peace and generally with food to eat – we are the lucky ones.

It’s been a year of Brexit. No, it isn’t done nor even looking like sorted but chances are we in this part of Scotland are leaving the EU along with the rest of Scotland and, of course, Northern Ireland against our democratic will on January 31^st 2020. But clearly it is not really just about Brexit, disastrous as it will be on our futures, it’s about a powerlessness to control our own destiny.

We do not know exactly what 2020 holds politically. We do know that the more vocal the voice of Scotland gets, the more we will have the kitchen sink (plus the dishwasher plus all the cooking utensils) thrown at us. The doom media will attack with stories of fearful consequences from independence. On another front we may see a commission set up to look at the future of the UK (reporting several years down the line) and federalism will rise up the agenda. What can we do?

In this area we know we have more of a challenge than most of the rest of Scotland. Even with the best of efforts politically, the SNP are not the first choice of too many voters and this won’t suddenly change. They are an unknown quantity of many who have moved here from England, and traditional Labour voters may find it hard to make the shift.

The election is over and fighting David Mundell and the Tories in this area may not now be the best way forward. We can let the Tories in the shape of Boris Johnson as a right-wing figurehead cause traditional Scottish voters here to look on with increasing mistrust. This leaves the majority of others in this area – the non-voters, the pro EU voters, the SNP voters, the Green voters, the Labour and Lib Dem voters and anybody else, to look towards independence.

A couple of messages, therefore, to take forward into the New Year.

The Yes movement is not an SNP movement solely. It includes people of all political parties and none, who believe that Scotland should take its place alongside every other self-governing nation in the world.

After independence there will still be a right to vote for whichever political party you want to run your country be it right, left or centre.

There is movement forward – enjoy Christmas and New Year. In January the broad Yes movement resumes the grass-roots conversion of people to Yes by openness, honesty, knowledge and commitment. This is going to be a challenging but worthwhile New Year.

All the very best to you all.

Yes, No or Maybe. This time the progress is clear.

Lockerbie to Edinburgh ( by Train) 1 hour

Lockerbie to Carlisle (by Train) 20 minutes

Annan to Carlisle (by Car ) 30 minutes

Annan to Edinburgh ( by Car) 2 Hours

Moffat to Glasgow (by Bus ) I hour 30 minutes

Moffat to Carlisle ( by Bus) 2hrs to 2hrs 45 minutes (with connections)

This is the reality in our part of the South West of Scotland – Annandale. In terms of geography, on the edge of Scotland and, some will argue, in terms of politics on the edge of Scotland. An area of Scotland with more people over 65 than most of the rest of the country and with the highest number of residents born outside Scotland – the majority born in England.

Last week in the Westminster election, as part of the Dumfriesshire Clydesdale and Tweeddale constituency, we elected one of the six Conservative MPs in Scotland (Scotland in total voted for other parties in the 53 other Westminster seats – 48 of them being SNP).

Possibly some people are a bit confused as to where we all stand in Annandale at the moment. What is not open to confusion however is that we are part of Scotland. That is a fact, pure and simple. This means that we are in an awfully good place potentially as Scotland moves towards becoming an open, independent, small country with the ability to play its part in the wider world, with a prosperous and fair future for all.

Now here comes the good news. For those feeling a bit knocked back by the prospect of David Mundell claiming to speak for all of us. There is now clear evidence in Scotland that the majority want to vote on the future direction of our country. There is also clear evidence from the work done by PROGRESS in Scotland – a clear and scientific approach concentrating on views and feelings of the previous neither Yes or No voters – that this important group of Maybes is slowly but surely moving in the Yes direction. We know that about 30% of our population are very pro the UK and are unlikely to change their attitudes in the near future. About 50% of Scottish voters are now likely to choose the self-governance route. This leaves 20% and these people as measured on a sliding scale are moving inexorably along that scale to Yes. It is not a sudden change and it needs support, honest information and reassurance. The direction is only one way.

In Annandale and the Borders in general there will always be, for the reasons of geography and population make up, less support for Yes than in other parts of Scotland. We accept that. We work to explain to as many as will listen and engage, the positives of living in an independent country. What we shouldn’t have a problem with is emphasising that Annandale is part of Scotland and although geographically we are on the border of Scotland, we are part of Scotland, and when Scotland decides on its future we are part of that future.

This time every vote will count

There is a prize for the winner in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (DC and T). There are no silver medals or certificates for plucky runners up. This is the stark reality of the outdated and unfair first-past-the -post system used on the 12^th of December to decide who is to represent us all in Westminster.

The winner has to be the SNP candidate Amanda Burgauer.

This is an election where every vote for Amanda will count.

If you or someone you know is hesitating to vote or indeed hesitating to vote SNP then here are some thoughts:

1 Your vote can help decide who is elected in Annandale as part of D C and T. It is up to others to decide what happens in the rest of Scotland or indeed the UK.

2 Your vote is private. No one will know who you voted for.

3 The way you vote in this election does not need to be connected in any way to how you might vote in any future elections. The choice is yours.

4 If you voted for a party other than SNP previously you may have a dilemma and as always you have a right to vote for whoever you choose:

There is no Scottish Green party candidate locally, so if independence is important to you then, in this election, there is only one pro-independence party and that is the SNP.

If you are supportive of staying in the EU there are two parties who are unequivocally pro-Remain, namely SNP and Lib Dems. In the previous two elections in this area there was clearly a two-horse race between Conservative and SNP. Frustrating as it is for Lib Dem supporters in this archaic voting system where winner takes all, the only chance of electing a pro-EU MP is to lend your vote, for this election only, to the SNP.

If you are a regular Labour voter who believes that the Conservative government is creating a rich vs poor, uncaring society led by Boris Johnson, you have a right to be very angry. Again with the voting system and a history of a relatively low Labour vote in D C and T the only way to oust David Mundell as a representative of this appalling inequality and threats to our Health Service is to vote on this occasion for Amanda Burgauer of the SNP.

If you are a regular Conservative voter and you feel ill at ease with the hard right direction that your party is taking you, far from the values that Scottish conservatives used to have, then maybe its time to elect a candidate who understands this area and has a grasp of local needs and business. That would be Amanda Burgauer.

5  If you are a an SNP supporter – get out there and vote. In 2015 the SNP came within just under 800 votes of defeating David Mundell. There are so many more SNP supporters in this area, every one of whom can help Amanda win.

It is important to note that the Yes movement is so much bigger than solely the SNP. People of all political parties and none are represented and this blog is written as factually as possible to highlight the situation in this area, at this time, only.

Putting David’s plan on ice

It would indeed be strange if this election ended up being decided by a block of ice in a Channel 4 studio. Anything is possible in this contest of bids and counter bids by the two main UK parties.

‘10,000 extra police is my promise.’

‘I’ll match you and raise you 50,000 nurses.’

‘Think that’s fantastic? What about 10,000 police, 50,000 nurses, 20 million trees.’

‘Ah, but here’s the clincher’ As it’s almost Christmas all of our trees will contain a free partridge. You’ve been trumped!’

We live in Annandale, which, as we have to remind our former MP David Mundell so often, is actually part of Scotland and not some vague, indistinct borderlands neither in one country or another. Nurses, police and the environment, and indeed trees are all part of devolved powers and therefore whatever promises are made to be broken after 13^th December, they are not relevant to us. Not sure you heard that BBC – they are not relevant to us here in Scotland.

Wow! Conservative manifesto says they will abolish car parking charges in hospitals. Only they do say in the small print this will only be for night staff! Well, Mr Johnson, in case you don’t know, you actually have never needed your small change to visit the new hospital in Dumfries even if you are simply a patient or visitor during daylight hours.

And so we come on to Mr Johnson’s aspiring representative in Annandale, the former MP David Mundell. David has a lot of money behind him and he is spending it very wisely on keeping the wheelie bins from Moffat to Annan well filled. Of course there is reference to Indyref2 in that subtle way of presenting a message to us, the gullible electorate,that is in all his literature. But if we read his latest leaflet then David has a plan. It’s called MY PLAN FOR DUMFRIESSHIRE CLYDESDALE AND TWEEDDALE. As we in Annandale live within the boundaries of this constituency with one of the longest names imaginable, then we have to know what David has planned for us, if elected. There is some proviso of course, to David’s plan in that he has really no control over it and, as he has always slavishly followed what his masters in London decide, then my plan will always be Downing Street’s plan anyway.

There are six points to David’s plan as spelled out in the leaflet. It’s worth pausing on David’s first point – To stand firm against IndyRef2. Well, maybe its not worth pausing after all so let’s move on. Let’s pause on the 2^nd point. Well, maybe not again because David’s view is that getting Brexit sorted is next. This from the man who previously said Brexit would be disastrous for Scotland.

To be fair some of the next points are reasonable – support jobs, deliver the borderlands deal ( there may be a few others involved in this, David, both in England and Scotland). Next, fight for improved communication links (fighting is really not your style), and also support measures to tackle climate change. As a continuing high- visibility opponent of renewable energy through wind turbines this will require a sudden change of direction for Mr Mundell. It is just as well he is well practised at the art of changing direction and then denying he did so. Finally he commits to supporting the major climate change conference being hosted by the UK Government (his words) next year in Scotland. This is, of course, the same event in Glasgow where Boris Johnson has already said he will keep Nicola Sturgeon and the Saltires away from. So David’s cunning plan already emerging is to grab all the progress being made by the Scottish Government on climate change measures and plant a Union flag on it when the world’s eyes are on Glasgow.

This completes David Mundell’s plan for us. We, the electorate of Dumfriesshire Clydesdale and Tweeddale, now have to decide on its merits. Oh, wait a minute! Here’s another Mundell leaflet just arrived. Stop ice melting by taking Channel 4’s license away! Now there’s a real vote winner. (another joke!)

Thank you Mr Mundell

It is a rare occasion that the Yes Annandale blog is able to thank the former MP for this area, David Mundell. Of course it may be that we should be thanking his team but let’s attribute his latest election leaflet to him personally.

Usefully the leaflet illustrates how we the public voted for four political parties in 2015.

Expressed in percentages the results were as follows:

Conservative 39.8%

SNP 38.3%

Labour 14.8%

Lib Dems 2.7%

What can we take from this information?

1 Slightly fewer than 4 in 10 voters chose to vote Conservative and therefore 6 in 10 voters chose either to vote for other parties or not vote at all.

2 The winning margin was only 1.5%. This equates to 798 voters. In other words if only 400 voters out of a total electorate of almost 70,000 from Annan to Peebles had voted SNP instead of Conservative then Mr Mundell would have been an ex- MP in 2015.

3 It was, and is. genuinely a two horse race in that and this election.

Now, you and I and Mr Mundell all know that the gap between him and the SNP was greater in the election of 2017 but it was still a two horse race. However Mr Mundell has chosen to use 2015 figures so let’s stick to them.

Thanks to Mr Mundell’s leaflet there are five clear messages:

1 It is not a given that this is a Tory seat. The SNP came very close in 2015 and therefore they can win this time.

2 There is a strong local SNP candidate in Amanda Burgauer who is up against a Tory candidate who has changed his stated stance on Brexit after he publicly said Brexit would be disastrous for Scotland. He is supportive of Boris Johnson despite saying he would resign if Boris Johnson became leader of the party.

3 There are new young voters registered since 2015 and there is strong evidence that the majority would not vote for Brexit or the current Conservative party.

4 If even a small number of Lib Dem or Labour voters chose, in this election only, to vote for the SNP then the Conservative candidate would be defeated. (Yes Annandale totally supports the right of any voter to vote in accordance with their party preferences and manifestos but sadly with our antiquated first-past-the-post system the question for everyone has to be – will my vote actually make a difference?)

5 In 2015 almost 16,000 people chose not to vote. If only 20% of them choose to vote in this election for the SNP the two horse race becomes a victory for Amanda Burgauer.

A summary therefore is: Amanda Burgauer of the SNP can defeat David Mundell through a combination of:

previous SNP voters turning out, young voters registering and voting,

previous non-voters choosing to vote and vote SNP

and possibly some voters who support other political parties choosing to help defeat a representative of Boris Johnson’s government for this election only.

Any or all of these are possible. Our thanks to Mr Mundell and his election literature for highlighting the ways of removing blue from our area.

Important footnote: The Yes Annandale blog is open to Yes supporters to express opinions by contributing to these blogs. This blog is one such. Yes Annandale does not specifically support one particular political party and as being part of the Yes movement the group is made up of people from different political parties and none. In this election, in this constituency, there is only one candidate who publicly supports a chance for the Scottish people to decide their own future.