UK Invasion of Norway: A Business Case

With every passing month it’s becoming ever clearer that Britain is stuffed. Radical solutions are called for.

We know that Norway’s Sovereign oil fund currently stands at £259,000,000,000 pounds, more than enough to cover both Britain’s £178 billion budget deficit AND the interest payments on the £1.5 trillion national debt.

Let’s look at the business case for invading Norway.

The UK could easily defeat Norway’s small navy and army (see photo above for what we are up against). It would keep the soldiers returning from Afghanistan busy. And it would stop Scottish nationalists bleating on about Norway being the country they most admire – after the annexation, Norway would then become part of Britain and the Scots can go there any time they like. We would then possess nearly all of the remaining North Sea oil reserves. If we dressed it up as a Union rather than an annexation, we could even adopt Norway’s membership of the EEA and the EFTA as its successor state, allowing the UK to fast-track its exit from the EU.

After the invasion, there would be no need for an extended occupation. The Norwegians are essentially friendly (see picture above again) and intelligence reports confirm they could be kept happy with cheap beer and porn, which, as those of you who have been there will know, are as rare as rocking horse shit. And wasn’t Quisling a Norwegian? They pretty much invented collaboration.

Of course, a pretext for war would be required, perhaps invoking anti-terrorism legislation, like we did for Iceland. But as the current Iraq Enquiry shows, coming up with elaborate excuses for war is still something we Brits do rather well and for which we can all still be justly proud.

Unthinkable isn’t it – one European country using another's oil-wealth to dig itself out of debt.

Of course, that would never happen.

What the Irish Result Means for Scotland & England

With the YES vote in Ireland and European Union integration back to full steam ahead, we are quite possibly living through the last days of UK sovereignty. Interestingly enough though, during these momentous times many UK nationalists can still be heard to argue that even though the UK should be independent from the EU, that Scotland should not from the UK.

The irony of this should not be lost on Scots.

England’s Future in the EU
The UK nationalist argument is that on the one hand Scottish nationalism is narrow-minded, parochial and a recent construction of the SNP, but that UK nationalism is ancient and noble and somehow the way things ought to be, despite it being entirely a creation of the years since 1707. The key to understanding this thinking is that most anti-EU UK nationalist arguments are in fact borrowed from Tory ideas of Englishness, and that almost all the UK’s anti-EU groups are also English. Englishmen are in effect trying to intellectualise what is in reality a visceral aversion to their absorption of English national identity into the EU international soup.




What will the Lisbon Treaty mean for the UK as it stands? If you want an idea of what will happen if Project EU is completed, look no further than Scotland’s history within the UK. The parallels with the UK's coming absorption into the EU collective are striking.

For some time before Union happened for Scotland, there was a loose form of union in place (regal Union in 1603). This generated much conflict with England, and serious doubts from both nations about whether to take it further. Then Scotland suffered from a financial disaster that almost bankrupted the country - the fallout of the failed Darien Expeditions in the late 1690s.

Sound familiar?

Eventually, after much heated debate and venting of spleens, England offered to compensate Scotland in return for incorporating union. The Scottish common people were utterly against it. Then a massive English campaign of pamphlets and propaganda was launched to get it over the line.

Sound familiar?

Daniel Defoe was an English agent in Scotland at the time and a key player. England spent big to bribe Scotland's political elites and, in the end, most of those who were against it changed their minds. Scotland was sold out and the Scottish parliament voted itself out of existence.

Full incorporating Union was then finally enacted, without a referendum, and against the wishes of the Scottish people. How do we know this was the case? The result was rioting in the streets of several Scottish cities.

Scotland’s sovereignty was lost but her national identity persisted stubbornly throughout the Union, during which time her political elites and much of her population threw their weight behind the British Imperial project which, as many Englishmen will admit, was heavily influenced by the Scots. In the 300 years since, Scotland was transformed beyond recognition as hundreds of thousands of Scots scattered themselves across the Empire as soldiers, governors, settlers and merchants. She entered the Union with a fifth of England’s population, and is threatening to leave with barely a tenth.

Her people helped found and populate many of the nations that grew out of the Empire. Conversely, most of her land at home is today under foreign ownership. That is the nature of junior partnership in an empire.

What does this mean for England? Her population stands today at 51.7 million, barely more than a tenth of the population of Europe. With this in mind, the question on the lips of many Englishmen is this: once we have lost our sovereignty, will our island location be enough to preserve what’s left of England’s national identity in a teaming sea of 499 million Europeans, or is our population destined for dilution and depletion as the English are scattered throughout Europe, and European migrants pour in?


Scotland and the EU
In Scotland, many Scots may be sorely tempted to say, “see how you like your own medicine”, but for us the baton change from Westminster to Brussels would be fairly straightforward. It will be something for which 300 years of union with England has prepared us. In reality, we are already part of the EU labour market, while receiving none of the benefits of direct membership. But will full membership of the EU be the best arrangement for an ‘independent’ Scotland?

Will it be a case of ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’?

Personally, after independence I would prefer a transition period of about twenty years to get our house in order and enter Europe on our own terms - if ever, instead of joining as an oil-rich-but-penniless escapee from the financial basket case that is Britain today. Norway’s associate membership via the EEA and EFTA has allowed it to opt into European programs on its own terms, and – through its massive oil revenues – to build a $400billion sovereign fund, giving it one of the hardest currencies in the world (as the UK Govt predicted 35 years ago would happen in Scotland after independence) instead of propping up the Euro.

This is probably the best path for Scotland.

Unfortunately, from where we stand I don’t think EEA membership is something that can be sold to a cautious Scottish public, in whose collective mind the act of breaking away from London will be difficult enough, and for whom the idea of Brussels acts as a safety net. In other words, if we want to get Scottish independence over the line, the SNP policy of independence-in-Europe is the most likely way it will succeed.

Independence-in-Europe has long been SNP policy, and although I’ve recently had my reservations, I now realise that these will only play into the hands of those who wish to keep Scotland in the UK. Make no mistake: for those Scots unsure of independence, cold feet about the EU will not lead them to choose the alternative model of EEA/EFTA-style of Norwegian nationhood.

It will keep us locked in this godforsaken Union.

Europe may have its problems but, as the expenses scandal has clearly shown, these issues are dwarfed by the systemic venality of Westminster and Whitehall. And the suggestion of Tony Blair as EU president should be seen for what it is: a distraction. Removing the corrupting influence of London’s tentacles from Scotland should remain our top priority and can only be a Good Thing.

If the last few weeks of Irish referendum coverage have taught us anything, it’s that most EU scaremongering in the UK has been by disaffected English Tories and the English Tory media, watching as the last vestiges of their national identity – dressed up as the UK – disappear.

That same UK sovereignty has allowed the British parliament to control Scotland since 1707 and, not to put too fine a point on it, the game is up.

So it’s important for Scots not to be taken in by English Tory protests at the loss of UK nationality to the EU. As part of the UK, Scots have no nationality to lose. We already lost that three hundred years ago, and now it's time to take it back.

Norway offers us the model, but even direct membership of the EU is more than what we've got now, which is nothing.

English Independence from the EU

According to the SNP, when Scotland eventually wins her independence back, it will be within the framework of Europe – not a form of nationhood all Scots are keen on. Personally, I prefer Norway’s fringe position in the EEA, only opting into the EU programs that are to its liking. The question is, why not England too? Everyone is talking as if the resulting diminished UK would continue as a member of the EU. But what if it somehow chooses not to take up the offer of automatic successor state membership?

Is this even possible?

By virtue of Scotland’s foundation membership in the United Kingdom of Great Britain via 1707’s Act of Union, if Scotland achieves her re-independence(1) she would not be leaving the Union so much as dissolving it, much like a marriage. Unfortunately for Lesser Britain, the EU would almost certainly ignore this legal inconvenience (much as it did with Ireland’s NO vote) and treat this new state as the effective successor entity to the old UK, insisting that it fulfil its relevant treaty obligations.

But what if there was no obvious successor state? What if the rump-UK were to fragment further, each part having its own parliament? What could the EU realistically do if the new nation-states choose not to become EU members?

Legally, Scottish re-independence is therefore the easiest route for England to achieve her own re-independence, in her case from the EU. The key is for the creation of an English parliament at the same time as Scotland regains her independence. With a separate representative body to the British parliament, Englishmen could then legitimately claim that England is not the UK's successor state.

Then it’s bye-bye Brussels and England will have won back her sovereignty, free of EU laws and foreign interference.

Thus, Scotland achieving her re-independence is England’s best way of separating from Brussels and becoming a nation again. A good reason for Englishmen to get behind Scottish independence, and another reason for English and Scottish nationalists to work together.







Notes

(1) Re-independence is a more correct term than ‘independence,’ which implies that it is something new. Scotland was an independent country for more than eight centuries, during which time England was successfully conquered twice by both the Danes and the Normans.

Operation 'Scorched Earth': Progress Report

Another fresh leak from my source in Westminster: this was received in the form of a typed memo, printed off on a blank white sheet of paper with no letterhead. The italics refer to handwritten notes made on the page.






Status of Operation 'Scorched Earth'
July 31, 2009
PRESENT: GB, AD, JM.

Only Lurch and Ali-D could make it. Fat George is too busy making bloody FOI requests!

Original Action Plan from July, 2007:

1. Starve Scotland of funds, making it look as if the Scottish Govt {^Executive} is picking fights and always asking for more.
STATUS: Ali-D says he is tightening the screws. It might backfire and lead to independence, but ok so far – and what the hell have we got to lose, anyway? Role of subservient Scottish press proving crucial.

NOTE: Talk to secretary about not using the phrase 'Scottish Govt'.

2. Work with other Unionist parties to block all Nat legislation in their pathetic minority government.
STATUS: Not working! Bastard Tories, Greens and LibDems won’t play ball, and seem to be making deals with the Nats to pander to their electorates.

3. Maintain UK policy of keeping the West of Scotland poor, maintaining Labour loyalty from section of population on benefit.
DANGER. Strategy seems to be failing – no longer possible with Nats in power. Seem to be getting their message through that Glasgow could be better off without us. Nats’ populist health and transport policies a blatant attempt at giving Scotland better services than England!
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to continue to reveal the cynical nationalist agenda that lies behind the Nats’ economic strategy. If all else fails, see next point.

4. Keep a tight hold of by-elections in Scotland, using ‘enabling’ machinery to win every by-election, regardless of the result.
STATUS: Screwed up in Glasgow East, but Lurch says Glenrothes proves we’ve got it under control.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch says Nats may be onto our methods, but putting Glasgow North East back to November should give us time to do whatever it takes to ‘take care’ of things.

5. Use influence to persuade UK Electoral Commission to turn a blind eye to postal vote anomalies in Scottish by-elections.
DONE.

6. Ignore all demands for transferring control of Scottish elections to the Scottish Govt. {^Executive}
STATUS: WORKING.

7. Keep the Scottish press churning out our press releases verbatim, with a Labour & Unionist slants on all other news. Impossible in England, but relatively easy in Scotland with fewer outlets and almost no Tory press.
STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Lurch says the blatant Unionist slant in the Scottish press is becoming too obvious. Editors of the Scotsman, Herald and Daily Record are apparently complaining that their unswerving Unionist bias on every subject under the sun is becoming ‘tediously obvious’, alienating traditional readership and causing their circulations to ‘freefall’.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to have a word with the editors to explore further ways to secretly subsidise them via advertising.

8. Fund Scottish Unionist bloggers to counter Nat lies about Scotland’s self-sufficiency or any successes of the Scottish Govt {^Executive}.
STATUS: NEEDS ATTENTION. Unionist bloggers complaining they aren’t getting any advertising revenue, which is dependent on their sites getting a high number of hits, which are almost non-existent.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to increase subsidies via ‘consultancy fees,’ and find ways to increase hits without more actual readers.

9. Build infrastructure to allow the UK to take the oil direct to England in case the Nats pull off independence.

DONE.

Should teach Scotland not to betray Labour, and prove once and for all that Scotland isn’t a viable state – exactly what we said all along!

10. Grab Scotland’s lottery money so that their Commonwealth Games in 2014 look like mince compared to England’s {^Britain’s} Olympic Games in 2012.
DONE.
NOTE: tell my secretary again the difference between England & Britain. I'm sick of explaining it to the dozy tart!

11. Put pressure on Scottish Sportsmen and women to declare their Britishness. Use press, TV and honours to bring them to heel.
STATUS: WORKING: Pretty Boy Hoy and Murray under control. No longer upsetting the English with their Scottish identity.
FURTHER ACTION: Some sports apparently already separated. Doesn’t seem to be any rule about which ones we compete in as British. Talk to MCG about possibility of England cricket team competing as 'Britain'.

12. Explore ways to get polling companies to issue doctored polls on lack of Scottish desire for independence.
STATUS: BBC seems to have remembered which side their bread is buttered and now pulling their weight. Last poll looked good. Shitting themselves that the Tories will get in and cut them back to just BBC1 and Radio 4! Would serve the back-stabbing bastards right!

13. Scottish press to persuade Scots they don’t want independence, and that a referendum is a waste of time in such difficult/ bountiful economic times (delete as appropriate). Demoralise ordinary Scots into accepting the status quo.
DANGER: Lurch warns that a general engagement in politics in Scotland is growing, and that the message that the referendum is a waste of time is starting to fall on deaf ears.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to talk to Fat George about continuing to sow FUD on separation/ isolation/ building barriers /dependency via Scottish press to counter the Nat’s cynical message of re-entering the world community of nations/ removing barriers to dealing with the world directly/ ending oil subsidies to England / Scotland's wealth in natural resources.

14. Spin news to make Scots believe their economy is dependent on British military contracts.
STATUS: NOT SURE IF WORKING. Scottish press playing the game but the Nats are on to us. Lurch recently tried to make it look like he saved a big contract, but Nats successful in showing that Lurch did bugger all. Lurch says Nats got the message through that the Tories could still cancel it.
FURTHER ACTION: Lurch to stay on message. Those with defence jobs might still vote Labour from fear of losing them.

Additional Item

15. Respond to Calman Commission findings.
STATUS: Lurch reassures me his fancy footwork to distance us from calamity Calman is working.
FURTHER ACTION: Delay response to findings until it is forgotten. Leave the Tories to deal with it, which means it'll never happen.

Special Note: All meeting actions henceforth to be approved by PM.
Still waiting for the Pink Baron to grant me an audience. Said he was too busy with all his committee work for ‘stupid Scotch stuff.’ Have left him four messages. Secretaries Brett and Hans say he’s tied up in an important debriefing.

Misc Personal Stuff

1. Talk to EU about possible presidential role after election/referendum defeat.

2. Get CV up to date.

Scotland Independent by 1950

What would Scotland be like today if the Home Rule Bill had been passed on its second reading in 1913? It was a very close thing, only prevented by the outbreak of the carnage of the Great War.(1) If Home Rule had happened then - rather than 85 years later in 1998 - it is safe to assume that independence would have followed within forty years, say by 1948, fifty years before devolution was grudgingly granted.


Comparing the history of Scotland to that of independent European states over the past sixty years, what follows is an attempt to construct what an independent Scotland's history would have been, had this happened.

1. Scotland declares independence in 1948, a year after India. The general feeling in both England and Scotland is that with the Empire winding down, the Union has served its purpose. It joins the UN the same year, the Scottish member sitting between the representatives for the 3.9 million people of Saudi Arabia and 13.3 million of South Africa.

2. The Stone of Destiny is returned to Scotland after the independence celebrations. Scottish Police hold back the jubilant crowds as the stone is welcomed at the border. A piper welcomes it home to Arbroath Abbey.

3. Queen Elizabeth's second coronation takes place over the Stone of Destiny in a refurbished Palace of Holyrood in 1953. The Scottish Government celebrates the event with new blue 'E1R' letter boxes. The English press label it a stunt.

4. Scotland re-establishes its east coast burghs’ European trade contacts from the time of the Hanseatic League. On March 30th, 1956, mayors from Flemish towns take part in an emotional ceremony in Berwick to remember the Flemish merchants killed when Edward I of England ordered his men to slaughter all 17,000 men, women and children there 660 years before.

5. Scotland a signatory to the Treaty of Rome in 1957.

6. Edinburgh rapidly expands as the population and services around Scotland’s government grows there.

7. The Scottish government invests in Glasgow to give it a facelift. It loses its grim post-imperial waterfront to be reborn in the architectural style of Charles Rennie Mackintosh (See above). The Highlands complain that too much investment is happening in the south.

8. Reverse emigration begins and children and grandchildren of Scots who emigrated in the last decades of Empire return from around the world. Gaelic speaking grandchildren of Nova Scotian émigrés, speaking English with strange Canadian accents, begin to resettle the Highlands.

9. In a 1960 referendum, Berwick-Upon-Tweed votes to return to Scotland, motivated by the better social services, healthcare and free transport for the elderly to the north. Other English Border towns also threaten to secede for the same reason, much to the annoyance of the British parliament at Westminster.

10. Oil is discovered under Scottish waters in the 1960s. Scotland leaves the oil industry in private hands and the oil begins to flow as the American oil companies apply their open water extraction skills learned in the Gulf of Mexico.

11. Glasgow’s social deprivation from the last years of Union is largely cured by 1970.

12. A cod war with Iceland is averted in the 1970s when Scotland and Iceland come to a peaceful agreement on their sea borders.

13. British PM Ted Heath follows Scotland with what is left of Britain into full membership of the Common Market in 1973.

14. The rump British state is refused an IMF loan in 1975, due to its lack of collateral. It goes cap in hand to Europe for funds.

15. In 1978, Scottish football is made a laughing stock as the team is bundled out of the World Cup in the first round, after boasting they would win it.

16. Scotland has a referendum in 1979 and votes to leave the EEC, even though 51.6% of the electorate choose to remain. Under Scotland’s 1949 Constitution, 40% of the electorate need to vote ‘Yes’ for Scotland remain within external organisations. The 'Yes' vote cries foul.

17. Margaret Thatcher is elected PM of Britain in 1979 and presides over EEC investment – mainly French and German subsidies - to reinvigorate English and Welsh industry, concentrating on mining.

18. In 1981, Scots band Rusty Nail win the Eurovision Song Contest, narrowly beating English band Bucks Fizz. Their gimmick is for the two girls to pull off the two men’s kilts, revealing women’s underwear.

19. Using her new-found oil wealth, Scotland begins building a breathtaking program of infrastructure in the 1980s. Scotland is soon covered in an integrated modern network of roads, rail and ferry links, addressing Highland concerns about excessive centralisation. The A9 becomes the backbone of the road system, a three-lane superhighway from Edinburgh to Inverness, one of the safest roads in Europe.

20. Aberdeen and Inverness hit one million people by the year 2000. Oban, a thriving West Highland student city of 500,000, becomes the twin city of Bergen in Norway.

21. In the 1980s, Scotland becomes famous for its effortless transition from heavy engineering to high tech, fuelled by low corporate taxes and government relocation subsidies. Silicon Glen becomes an R&D and export phenomenon, unlike the cheap PC manufacturing facilities in England, which take advantage of its cheap labour.

22. In 1985, the Glasgow’s Mile’s Better campaign celebrates the city as one of the most beautiful in the world.

23. By 1990, oil revenues have given Scotland one of the hardest currencies in the world, and the Scottish pound becomes a safe haven currency, alongside Switzerland and Norway’s. (2)

24. A sovereign oil fund is created in 1990 to prevent successive Scottish Labour governments spending oil revenues on infrastructure Scotland no longer needs, and to keep inflation down. Despite this, Scotland is soon regarded as one of the most expensive places in the world, but not for the locals, who are paid in local currency and find everywhere else in the world ridiculously cheap. Scottish students become known throughout Europe for their annoying leather backpacks and free higher education.

25. Scottish unemployment drops to among the lowest in the western world, while the Scottish welfare state is the envy of Europe, with poverty almost non-existent.

26. By 2000, Scotland’s population reaches 7 million, having grown at the same pace as other similar size European countries since 1950, supplemented by extensive reverse emigration. (3)

27. In late 2008, a consortium of Scottish and Norwegian banks bails out Iceland, after the Welsh Prime Minister of Britain – known popularly as 'Flash' Morgan for his role in the credit crisis there – invokes anti-terrorism laws to seize Icelandic assets to protect British investors.

28. In 2009, Scotland shrugs off the credit crunch and the subsequent depression by dipping into its $326 billion sovereign oil fund, recently hit by the world economic downturn. (4)

I hope this gives at least some Scots an idea of how much their birthright has been stolen from them, and how much is at stake in the coming referendum.

Any resemblance to actual events or to persons living or dead is purely intentional.






References

(1) Murray G.H. Pittock, Scottish Nationality, Palgrave, New York, 2001, pages 100-102

(2) See http://www.oilofscotland.org/

(3) Norway – from 3.2 million to 4.6 million; Denmark – from 4.3 to 5.3 million; Sweden – from 7 million to 9 million; Portugal – from 8.4 million to 10.7 million.

(4) This is the current balance of the Norwegian Sovereign oil fund, which is spread across a mixed portfolio of ethical investments. Twenty nine corporations are barred from receiving any of the funds.
http://www.swfinstitute.org/fund/norway.php