by AhabsOtherLeg
Funnily enough, I do agree with some of what
George Robertson said in that speech. Scottish independence will indeed
embolden other independence movements across Europe - Catalonia (which
looks set to vote Yes anyway, as they have before), and the Bretons in
France, the Walloons and Flemish in Belgium, the Basques, etc.
While Robertson pisses himself at this prospect, seeing the financial and military interests of his good friends threatened, I welcome it.
Look at the European states who have strong independence movements within them...
It is all the old Imperial powers, isn't it? Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, Russia (with some NATO help in that case), and so on. Spain and Portugal already split up, so I'm excluding Portugal from the imperial powers list, though they do have a highly shitty colonial past.
There is also the immensely comedic potential here for Brussels to end up outside the EU, if Flanders and Wallonia split up, and the EU sticks to the rules on "new states" that they claim they'll use for Scotland.
Imagine that.
On the Robertson/Dunblane stuff, one must tread carefully. He won a libel case against the Glasgow Herald not because of anything they'd actually printed in the paper, but because of an anonymous online comment that was left on an article by persons unknown. They had to pay so much in damages that they almost went under altogether. For all the laughability of his panic-stations rhetoric, he is a powerful and well-connected man (being made the non-military head of NATO is among the least of his various appointments over the years). It is bizarre to see him and George Galloway on the same side in the independence debate. They know each other well, and the loathing is mutual.
Apparently (to his credit) Robertson did criticize Thomas Hamilton's boy's clubs for being too "militaristic" in style (he withdrew his son from one of them for this reason).
That's a wee bit ironic, though, considering how much Robertson likes a militaristic style in every other aspect of his life.
While Robertson pisses himself at this prospect, seeing the financial and military interests of his good friends threatened, I welcome it.
Look at the European states who have strong independence movements within them...
It is all the old Imperial powers, isn't it? Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, Russia (with some NATO help in that case), and so on. Spain and Portugal already split up, so I'm excluding Portugal from the imperial powers list, though they do have a highly shitty colonial past.
There is also the immensely comedic potential here for Brussels to end up outside the EU, if Flanders and Wallonia split up, and the EU sticks to the rules on "new states" that they claim they'll use for Scotland.
Imagine that.On the Robertson/Dunblane stuff, one must tread carefully. He won a libel case against the Glasgow Herald not because of anything they'd actually printed in the paper, but because of an anonymous online comment that was left on an article by persons unknown. They had to pay so much in damages that they almost went under altogether. For all the laughability of his panic-stations rhetoric, he is a powerful and well-connected man (being made the non-military head of NATO is among the least of his various appointments over the years). It is bizarre to see him and George Galloway on the same side in the independence debate. They know each other well, and the loathing is mutual.
Apparently (to his credit) Robertson did criticize Thomas Hamilton's boy's clubs for being too "militaristic" in style (he withdrew his son from one of them for this reason).
That's a wee bit ironic, though, considering how much Robertson likes a militaristic style in every other aspect of his life.
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