“There shall be a Scottish Parliament”, with those historic words, Holyrood opened and the most amazing third rate politicians became a plague on Scotland, MSPs discuss giving Scots prisoners the vote, the answer is yes, but can third rate politicians manage to get their act together?

Dear All

All political parties in opposition cry long and loud about their commitment to Human Rights, it is one of the standard con tricks to get elected, once in, their commitment takes a back seat unless you are in a minority. However, not all minorities are acceptable to them; prisoners in Scotland are a minority that historically has been denied a vote in elections.

If you give a prisoner their human right to vote, the other parties then turn on the party advocating it to try to enhance that they are ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’.

This is the prime reason why change is talked about and generally not possible. Politics is effectively ruled by the middle class elite which I have spoken of in the past, the Scottish Labour Party is a classic example of this problem.  As you know, the tipping point of disaster has been reached by Labour in Scotland and the election results bear this out over past elections. The ‘revival’ narrative used straight after the last election about the seats gains is deception, the SNP vote collapsed and allowed for some seats to change hands.

Scottish politics remains in flux.

We now at Holyrood have what appears to be an exercise in #fakepolitics, MSPs have discussed the prospect of allowing prisoners to vote in Scottish elections. In the Scottish Referendum, the SNP wouldn’t allow prisoners to vote, not on moral grounds but on the grounds that they didn’t wish to extend to prisoners their human rights in case it backfired on them.

Democracy it seems is only for those deemed worthy.

Convicted prisoners have been prevented from voting in elections in the UK despite a series of legal challenges and even as far as the European Court of Human Rights who have ruled against the UK's blanket ban on several occasions. The idea that the Holyrood's equalities committee considered arguments and practical points is bullshit, and as to Committee convener Christina McKelvie saying the matter merited "careful consideration".

Is Christina McKelvie having a laugh?

When I read that Christina McKelvie is saying this matter merited "careful consideration", I immediately think this stupid bitch doesn’t understand human rights; however McKelvie is the only pretend politician in the ‘pretend’ parliament. Holyrood is teaming with third rate politicians in a second rate parliament. The parliament is a disgrace, it isn’t changing lives for the better, it is just another tier of government that benefits ‘the few over the many’.

The reason for the interest now is that Holyrood is taking on new powers over the administration of elections north of the border so we have a ‘process’ where some MSPs adopt the position as being ‘for’ the idea and the majority then jump on the ‘against’ bandwagon.

If there is an election in the offing, the human rights don’t matter, the answer is no, keep the status quo, as the SNP who shout they are pro Europe, the irony is delicious. Pro European Party which will not put into effective a European Court of Human Rights rulings, I mean it isn’t like the Court got the decision wrong either in principle or in law.

Green MSP Patrick Harvie suggested expanding the franchise in the past, but his bid rejected by MSPs, so here is a question, why didn’t Patrick Harvie then put forward a private members bill?

On the subject of private members bills, how many MSPs have actually submitted a private members bill during their tenure as MSPs? I think that is research which I would like to see carried out because it would better inform the public about the standard of MSPs were have been lumped with.

Harvie says there was an "absolute requirement" to revisit the issue, amazing Harvie gets this right but before you get carried away, there is a catalogue of supporting bad decisions under his belt.

He said:

"It is a point of principle that Holyrood must change the law to comply with human rights. The blanket ban must therefore be ended. Stopping all prisoners voting, regardless of the nature of their offence or the length of their sentence, clearly breaches human rights, and the current position cannot hold. If we want Scotland to be a beacon for fairness, and if we believe in rehabilitating offenders, we must look at all the options, have the debate, and end the ban."

The Prison Reform Trust charity submitted a paper outlining "a clear and unambiguous case for reform", saying that "voting is not a privilege, it is a basic human right".

The case for reform is clear, but as many people know being right doesn’t always matter to politicians which is why this country is so bad, people need more access to direct democracy because our rights aren’t being protected. In the past the one of the greatest advances in human rights was made against the SNP, this is the Cadder Case which ended up at the UK Supreme Court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadder_v_HM_Advocate

The SNP fought long and hard to deny people human rights, I therefore don’t hold out much hope for Nicola Sturgeon and her motley crew getting a grip on this issue. You don’t give people their human rights because you like them which appears to be the benchmark in Scottish politics, you do so because they are entitled to them, like doesn’t come into it.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University