on a space flight you literally leave all your problems behind you fly high and above everyone and everything until you see any and all borderlines on us disappear you see that our planet is not as we're taught in schools with different countries marked in different colors separate from one another you see that our planet earth is just another will be a bigger international space station on a mission in the fastness of space just like the i sassed. welcome to the alex salmond show where we present a program on the constitutional future of scotland this weekend and despite de blas to ajanta when i did belushi free another enormous march for scottish independence

took place in glasgow. of course this follows another general election victory for the s. and p. where their unionist appointed sorted used to a grand total of 11 seats compared to $48.00 pro independent same piece however there is no sign whatsoever that bothers johnson is prepared to accept that landslide as a month date for the for the independence referendum this week he'd ought to nicolas cage and the scottish 1st minister brushing aside her demand for a new pool and a future programme will examine in detail the westminster response to the scottish government's demand for the for the independence referendum but the show will feature the fuse of commentators and probably maintain and on how scotland should best progress its claims in the face of this feat today we asked 2 top political commentators. and judge kevin how the drama is likely to play it i'm to be asked to

expedience to s.m.p. parliamentarians from scotland and with spencer for their views on with their scotland but 1st your tweets messages and emails in response to russia last week lynn says it's good to look back at the year now it's time to move forward and work towards scottish independence scorches says really love the shores of northern ireland catalonia and finland far surpassed that i put of p.p.c. . martin says love the show alex great to see all the folks at major issues so interesting over the year who'd have thunk it that limits predictions would be so i could it have you got in picking your horse is now andrea says can't wait until the day that programming like this is our mainstream scottish t.v. my favorite thing to watch thank you so much andrea and finally taria from finland says independent scotland soon i don't want to get a visa to get there now the general election provided the prime minister with

a mind to get bricks it's done however north of the border things did not go according to the johnson fun with half the tory seats crashing and burning the other unionist parties did even worse with labor just to install the cheese seat and the liberals losing their you keep party leader to success however that is no sign that borders johnson is prepared to buy to s.n.p. government demands for the powers to hold another referendum or indeed have to as it's known in scotland these are the exchanges a prime minister's questions the prime minister is a democracy. thank you to the brave men of crises calling privately you know this position is undemocratic unacceptable and completely unsustainable the prime minister has showed an hour took a turn for scottish democracy your school the parliament of the scotland's people the speaker it was not only the right honorable gentleman who leads the s.n.p.

in this house it was also alex salmond and does protege nicholas sturgeon who said at the time of the referendum that it was a once in a generation to any city they said they the right thing why do you change their mind here is that you know are these that in our a democracy yes and still how is the impasse likely to be resolved alex asked political commentators miss wishart and former s.n.p. m.p. george coven. you know for sure welcome back to the alex salmond's show thanks alec now and your pre-election forecasts of a month ago you were more or less spot on you said the s.n.p. would make substantial gains the unionist parties and suffer the vassals you didn't foresee that the feat of jewel swenson but apart from that you've got matters right what's happened since then and scottish politics there is a standoff as you know because the scottish national party has said it once had

referendum this year the government with mr has said no we and him that's where we stand at the moment but as you say it's a start of a request from nicholas stopped them to have the so-called section pfaff to have another referendum accepted by westminster the point blank refusal from bala starts in this week so how does that sort of constitutional standoff get resolved i'm not at all sure because there's actually quite a lot of division within the ranks of the independent supporters as to how we should proceed there's a there's a bit of a head of steam i mean amid some supporters of the with the government and independents that mr keep seeing new then we should effectively just do a u.g.i. on the groans that the union of the parliaments in 1707 was a union between if you pardon the expression 2 consenting adults it wasn't a teac over at least it it wasn't put treated as such at the time so that's one thought the thought of this scottish government quite differently is that if we

have any sort of independence referendum in scotland which doesn't have the legitimacy of the section 30 order that you flagged up then it would have properly galatea and if it doesn't a proper legality it will impinge on scotland's ability to stay in europe to make a bid to become a european nation there after of course the idea of scottish independence being decided and the referendum is actually a relatively new concept and scottish politics for for many many years successive prime ministers even margaret thatcher accepted the majority of. beans from the sh t. would provoke the pan the situation was all that changed i don't know i'd really like to know the answer that myself because even m.l.s. to jack the scotland secretary said as recently as last autumn that if in the end the 2021 scottish general election there was a there was a majority in favor of independence then that would be a mandate for a referendum he just this last weekend he's changed his tune in that possibly

because of boris i think it's also interesting alex to look at the northern ireland situation there are many similarities in as much as northern ireland voted remain the majority voted to mean as indeed the majority in scotland did but northern ireland has come out of this with a very nice do it's good another bumper bonus coming a long down the tracks but significantly in the northern ireland agreement there was provision that if a majority of people in northern ireland wanted reunification they could have a poor to say to a so about a family member correctly and the legislation not out of the can of a poor theoretically every 7 years if it suddenly the good friday agreement is 7 years printed off for nonviolent but not good enough for scotland well just at the very fact of having a referendum having a pool is good enough for labor no good enough for scotland and of course the other thing i mean i don't begrudge the irish this a toll but the other thing is that ireland northern ireland thanks to boris's withdrawal deal is no able to see within a tariff free trade agreement within

a factory still within the e.u. who has scotland is going to be in some difficulty the i mean we've already seen signs of this with the americans putting slapping a tag of scottish whisky which is as you know is a very big foreign editor for scotland and indeed for the for the exchequer in london so what is scotland's reaction in your estimation likely to be the johnston vehicle going to be well we're sure him or tough there were people shrug our shoulders and go to the back of the bus i don't think anybody shrugging their shoulders and. more and i think the fact that there were 80000 plus people marching in and i mean that the weather in glasgow last saturday had you know any self respecting ducks looking for umbrellas it was absolutely horrendous but the number of the troops came out in numbers who i would worry about if i were nicholas sturgeon is you can't keep expecting people to turn know with their so tires demonstrate a high level of enthusiasm and then do nothing i think they will come a point where the scottish government has got to take some for my action when we're

the other otherwise they stand to lose the support they've already built up requests are going to push in your gut the general election result scotland more or less correct not going to ask what's going to happen not well i mean i think the general consensus with which i agree alex is that there will be no referendum in 2020 apart from anything else we learned this week from the institute for government for one to happen just in terms of the logistics and they would have to be in agreement on a section 30 order by april and that ain't going to happen self evidently from what we saw this week so there's not going to be one this year the 2nd the fullback position if you like is that the year the 2021 scottish general election is effectively the referendum the next referendum on independence but the problem with that is that even if they win and win big the scottish government and even if with the help of the greens they've got a substantial majority in favor of independents you still have the no inconsiderable problem of burra saying no. aren't what's going to happen when boss

says no i mean i seem to remember that mark and such of used to say north scottish devolution yes that's right and the bliss it can in kenyan writer for and memory when scotland put don't it's cream of rate 70 of the scottish people in 1980 and he was asked the same question in the he said what i've said to him too kind in a kenyan right what happens if mrs thatcher says no and he said well we are the people and we say yes i'd like to see something similar reports out for glasgow thank you very much indeed thanks alec does cover the welcome back to the alex salmond show happy new year arts. well i just kind of a bull for commentator but you also are a farmer of scottish national party member of the westminster parliament so firstly as a commentator how would you assess this impasse this deadlock between edinburgh and london on the subject of the independence referendum well i mean we're in uncharted

waters here for the 1st time we have been told in scotland that you cannot have a referendum ever you're you're part of an indivisible union and you have no say in the matter now indivisible unions have a have an unhappy record of breaking up but we're uncharted water also because after the election people in the labor party people outside the national family have begun to think well game's up we want scotland to decide where it's going they need a bit of leadership and i think there's a question mark over the scottish government which seems to have walked into what we walked into a trap from from boris johnson he's going to say no he's got to go and say no so what does the government do but just kelvin the 1st burst or so should be responding to the vitriol from bob as johnson by the end of this month what the answer come forward and that stage that you can all rally behind well we mean it's an amazing thing going on in scotland in that people are voting with their feet

that actually literally getting on the streets and marching they've been marching presently every month the beginning of january $80000.00 people in the pouring rain in glasgow they're looking for a leadership and the leadership has to be something more than just waiting on boris that appears to be the scottish government like you know in northern ireland they already have in the good friday agreement the constitutional right to call a referendum on the border whenever they want scotland is being denied that and i think it's some point if boris is refusing to give scotland what northern island has there will be civil disobedience but as a nod now in the good friday agreement is a 7 year period what we see that would be 20. 21 to be applied up to stop the desire. democracy is invisible if people if people are part of a union they get it they get the right to say whatever they want whether they continue in that unit and that is no happening i think that the problem for the scottish government so far is it wants to take all the decisions itself but there

are new forces in in train after the election people the labor party are shaking their heads they want something different we have to have some form of reaching out which goes beyond simply the scottish government and having of addicts and i think we might need some kind of institution some kind of convention some kind of gathering of all the political forces goal of the say we want the right to self-determination and the people who are marching in the streets in scotland they need some kind of leadership as we've seen in catalonia say where they don't we're told the politicians they organize themselves and they campaign themselves if this go to a really has a plan it is to start spending some money on it and actually there's there's there's been no move from the s.n.p. leadership to mobilize on the streets to campaign to produce campaign literature for independence or a referendum it can't all be left to the people at holyrood no you're becoming known as the the man with a plan after the after goal you wrote to the national paper this week in scotland

so spell out what the planners of you think there's a way forward trucked for viewers there are 2 issues one is the right to self-determination the other is winning an independence majority on self-determination i think there are no broad forces who agree that it's scotland's democratic right to have a referendum when it wants if it wants it's not something of be imposed from london secondly on the issue over india winning the case for independence where scholar at the moment split 5050 we need to campaign on the doors everyone agrees on that but the campaign has to be organized scottish s.n.p. leadership is is not actually talking a good game but it's not actually. to do anything we need to set up a separate movement of those who want independence in the streets separate from the politicians who are poor can organize the marches you can raise the money you can produce the campaign but you can start knocking on the doors no we can't wait another year we can't wait to the next holyrood elections we need

a campaign now but the campaign has to be organized and that has to be organized by the people themselves george garrulity and edward thank you very much indeed. join us after the break to get the views of 2 s.n.p. parliamentarians on how scalding can progress the case for a referendum in the face of a westminster to. you know world of big partisan new things. and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks.

welcome back the view from scotland from the streets on daily action seems clear and determined however the view from dynasty seems equally determined so is the it is a civil force meeting an immovable object alex spoke to form a scottish cabinet member i'm briggs at rebel alex new m.s.p. i just former 7 colleague i knew the elected m.p. for east lothian kenny macaskill to charts their votes ahead. kind of mccaskill the newly elected member for the slow into the westminster parliament congratulations and welcome to the exam and to thank you it's good to be back but yourself and the other 48 independents support again peace aleck 2 from scott with a huge election trials but if i arrived in westminster making your 1st speech in the palace the west most of this week of boris johnson says that you know getting a referendum so we go there now it's a democratic right to the people of scotland to be able to decide upon their own

independence and therefore this i to treat been taken by boris johnson that you cannot have an independent stress. random ever despite the fact to prepare to see one in a border pull in ireland is fundamentally undemocratic super got to build the base not just amongst independents supporters but all those who cherish democracy but when you last week suggested this new scottish constitutional convention replaying what was done in the eighty's and ninety's of devolution you took a fair criticism a for breaking ranks and secondly for people saying look we want our referendum no we don't want another talking shop for a number of years well i think late every member of their same p. i want a referendum if we could have it yesterday i would have it but the fact of the matter is it was never going to come i don't think i broke ranks i think we said what everybody knew but some people chose not to not to accept or to acknowledge so

i think we've got to plan our peer we now know that he's not accepting it we should be doing i think building that beast that grassroots level because everything we do a senior political level of bringing together than i can see to you have not said it to others i can see i've had private approaches from other members of other political parties no s. and p. in greens who agree with us so we've got to reach out to them but we've got to do it not just a national level we should be doing this look level a nice little bit those and other political parties who agree with us who oppose not just to see the because it's not just scotland right to choose a different direction on whether an independent nation is the right to choose a different direction in membership reviewed up of a relationship with europe of how we impose taxation whether we you know look after the poor upon arrival or cost them through the windows johnson's going to do this is a poke in the people of scotland to be able to run their own country and choose their own destiny after pressure in this new names no patco but split pool parties on

what level of seniority of these people who are saying the at least back scotland's right to choose the labor party and its. individual members i would name then that's for them but they've been in touch to see that they agree so well as a good buddy to supplement colleagues actually i was at the hand of friendship by others the talk in parliament we're talking parliament in and i think that's what we have to do all levels we have to reach out to activists in the community as we've done elections as we're chopping doors but as a particle that we bring together whether we call a constitutional convention a convocation of this is how we move forward get the elected representatives of scotland in the uk or those that choose to come but s.n.p. in green will be there i'm sure including the person who got in touch me there will be more because of spoken out from the labor party and there might be others but if a prime minister with a parliamentary majority of 80 it westminster he's prepared to dismiss an election result scotland is prepared to struggle inside the loss of half of the same piece

is he really going to be impressed if the s.n.p. and some labor of people and perhaps the s.t.c. and some others get together in scotland though is it really going to borrow some of the late bata starts well i'm sure would initially he'll have some consent but it won't bother but it's then the actions that we can work locally because then the day you and i were there the time when margaret thatcher decided to bring the poll tax in on scotland to bring in a year from south of the border the elected representatives because we didn't have a scottish parliament would oppose to it but if the people of scotland ultimately said no margaret thatcher was brought down and the iron lady was well and truly melted on the backs of the anti poll tax movement after conception that of bottles johnson will wave the check book. check book at no niland the present moment that he might not to be quite as unpopular as many people in the national movement in scotland believe well 1st of all i don't believe that the check will be waived

or know that action even of this has been a spate across the channel but more importantly i don't thing. keon has 0 caliber going to be popular in scotland have never been in portland scotland i've just been doing some research about 200 years ago an adult of henry didn't dast so you remember he was a potentate of similar males he was a tory it represented an oligarchy of rich landowners 200 years on horse changed alice to jack represents an oligarchy he says he's a scottish secretary he's got no more political legitimacy than henry dunn dyess and yet to see it represents an oligarchy of the rich and find a kind of a classical form of scottish justice a new boy in the westminster parliament you signed up for a 5 year term will you get your referendum and not 5 years for counting can a car school thank you very much thanks for making me. feel member of the scottish parliament bought us johnson says no to another scottish referendum does come as

a surprise to the scottish parliament members i do think it was a tall a surprise given the comments he and his colleagues have been making in the ridiculous comments made by the scottish take it to alice of jock the even if next year again we renew the mandate for an independent verification dome they still wouldn't accept the democratic decision of the scottish people it's unbelievable that the tory party has got itself into this situation yes but surely the prime minister whether it's unbelievable of not consider look i've got the commons majority of 80 my mandates bigger than your math you can go in wessel for your referendum well 2 points 1st of all on mine didn't actually relatively big of them has because he had 43 percent of the vote we got 45 percent of the vote in scotland but much more importantly than that but this is a both the right of self-determination which the tory party in the past has been

prepared to accept that the scottish people have the right of self-determination we went into this union valan tonally. we're entitle to exeter voluntarily and he can stop that and is somebody one said we are the scottish people and we see yes so we're not listening to boris johnson's neat yes but he doesn't require you to listen to heaven all here the choir says not to authorize another scottish referendum so in the bowels of the scottish parliament is that a strategy to deal with the johnston veto and already we see people in other parties most noticeably the labor party breaking ranks with the in leadership and saying yes the scottish people should have the right of a referendum and determine whether they want independence or noid and that's coming from a party who's actually going through a poor is independence and such a referendum kenny macaskill the former scottish justice secretary has told us that

he supports another form of scottish constitutional convention to press the case for a referendum is that the sort of initiative you support or do you believe are those to say well that's another talking shop that's more years delay we want a referendum now and if the last time we formed a scottish constitutional convention and actually was very effective in forcing the issue of devaluation onto the agenda and of course it's no 20 years since the devolve polman it was established we could do it they were much stronger now because we've got a polman and we could use that palmer as a forum to bring you why it's a action of scottish society together to demand the right to self-determination so you say scotland speaking in one voice but you yourself has been a rebel on european policy you're one of the few signal s.n.p. figures are they simply parliamentarian who kind of agreed with brakes or if you

speak one voice when you're putting forward a different point of view on the key issue of europe the fact that breaks it is going. to happen legally at the end of this month means that we've now got to look at our future not only in relation to the rest of the united kingdom but what kind of future does an independent scotland want with the rest of europe by your own view is by far the best solution to that would be for an independent scotland to become a member of the european free trade association efta and that gives us the benefits of the e.u. with most of the don't sides of the e.u. and i believe we could garner a consensus for that position as well i mean finally what do you say to these tenants of phone thousands of referendum independents 'd marshals on the streets of glasgow defying the elements last weekend these are people who are looking for

a mean shit action not less they for for talking shops are for the delay that they want to see the campaign progress to immediately put sure message to them well well those many of us been fighting for independence for 3040 years and even more so i would see 2 things through them 1st of all i believe that we are going to win this battle and win it within the next few years but secondly we have got to play with the hand we've got to maneuver got to be more perfidious than albion sales and that means continuing with the marquis's setting up the scottish constitutional convention looking at the possibility if we're not going to get ascension thing at the order to legitimize a referendum in the eyes of westminster is it a toll possible legally to have a consultative way for end i'm organized in scotland can waste months the start up all of these things have to be considered but we've got to keep the battle going and put

a fairly clear battle plan in place easy to get the right to self-determination through a 2nd referendum to tame of our own choosing in the scottish parliament and secondly in that way for a i will be fighting for an independent scotland neil from edinburgh thank you very much indeed. pleasure there is an ancient chinese story dating from the 3rd century b.c. sometimes called the spear and shield potter talks and tells of a seller of armory being exposed when he attempted to simple to mislead sell an unstoppable spear and an impenetrable shield or only to have it pointed out that logically both could not be valid seals thus in the wake of the general election something has to give when it is a simple force of scottish nationalism movable object of majority government and the house of commons. the scottish 1st minister promised every friend in this year indeed f 2020 and said that

a convincing general election victory would sweep away all of position the victory arrived but the opposition his state however the british prime minister fought the election in scotland on opposition to these demands and lost spectacularly it is difficult to explain a mandate to run britain while simultaneously denying a bigger one expressing scotland's will some argue that the s.n.p. should by their time prepare their case rechecks to other parties and to wait until the new johnson government hits civil however was predicted evident the mitten scotland among the independents marchers is not one of calm appraisal but of bold and determined resolution that is a viewpoint that far from done the brakes a constitutional drama is only finishing its 1st act with the withdrawal agreement in comparison however the scottish constitutional standoff has just started the opening curtain it's barely up on this particular scottish plea from whether

scotland to be will soon move to whether the labor party with the runners and writers now declared for the leadership contest but next week we returned to the subject of his' ng and examined both practical action and academic study on homelessness so for now from alex me and all of the team at the show we'll see you next thank you thank you thanks. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy to. let it be an arms race in. the very dramatic development of only loosely.

i don't see how that strategy will be successful ready. to sit down and talk. the russian president appoints former chief. the country's new prime minister after parliament overwhelmingly votes in favor of his account to see. media suggest putin's to devolve power to the russian parliament are part of a plot to stay in power beyond 2021. libya's rebel general. reportedly agrees to abide by the cease fire currently in effect in the war stricken country it comes hours after president said turkey would be sending more troops to libya to support the u.n. by.