The drawback with the outdoor ice-rink at the entrance to Frederiksberg Have (park) is the ice-hockey skates for hire. They have no brakes. But the scene is beautiful in the fading light.
A few days ago there was a massive march here. Drone footage on Twitter X followed its entire length. It went from the local town hall about 500 metres away, and stretched to the city centre. Buses arrived from Jutland and Fyn and up to 70 organisations supported the march. Once it got to the outdoor ice-rink, it turned left down Frederiksberg Alle – a broad Paris-style boulevard.
The event was similar to the great indy marches of previous years. And just as our erstwhile nationalist First Minister never attended a single pro-independence march, Danish PM Frederiksen has, so far, attended none of these peace marches. She’s no Olof Palme, that’s for sure.
That said, Mette Frederiksen is now under pressure to distance herself from the horrors being perpetrated by the Israeli regime. But if she’s to land an international top post, how far dare she go? There are certain jobs prime ministers eye-up while in office. Politicians have to be ‘sound’, though. ‘Sound’ in the Sir Humphrey Appleby sense, if they’re to be considered. The careerist’s dilemma is tangible in the disconnect between Frederiksen and the ‘Dane in the street’.
In a nation with a surfeit of political parties in parliament (16 at the last count) one of them decided to abolish itself this week. Nye Borgerlige – New Right – are no more. Led by the effervescent Pernille Vermund, they looked at their 1.6% in the polls, just below the [2%] threshold for representation, and decided to fold. Vermund has decided to seek pastures new, within the political bubble. Rumours suggest she and her MPs will join one of the other parties. And why not? The views of one populist party of the right are pretty much like the others. Much of a muchness. That said, Vermund may have an eye on the EU elections in June. She’d feel quite at home listening to Ursula von der Leyen, I’m sure. And the EU is, after all, the ultimate gravy train.
We Scots don’t have a surfeit of parties, but it can only be a matter of time before the wider Scottish public realises, that voting for any Unionist party standing in our land, returns the same result – English colonial rule. Tory, Lib-Dem, and Labour are merely Unionist parties now. Most of them have as much in common with the Orange Order and Ulster Unionism as they do with each other. This week highlighted the scourge of a ‘British Scotland’ as part of the United Kingdom – we did not join other nations in supporting South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ. Would an independent Scotland have been so insensitive to the sufferings of an occupied, colonised people? I like to think not.
Of course, the big news here is Queen Margrethe’s decision to abdicate – announced during her traditional New Year’s Eve speech. “We were at the last-ever torchlight procession to welcome Margrethe to Fredensborg Palace last spring,” my son pointed out. He’s home from republican France at the moment. A sense of history clearly came over him, here in the land of his birth. He probably feels some kind of connection to the royal institution, as much of his childhood was spent playing in the grounds of the royal residence not far from here. Fredensborg Palace was popular with Margrethe and her late French husband, Henri. We had a favourite place in the sprawling grounds next to a monument surrounded with a ring of canons. On display every summer, these things catch a child’s imagination. Those were simpler days, when our children’s biggest task was collecting sticks and twigs. Oor bairns grow up too fast, don’t they?
There is huge affection for Margrethe throughout all layers of Danish society. Less so, for PM Frederiksen and political careerists around her. Coming 24 hours after the Queen’s, Frederiksen’s speech was rather dull. Commentators pointed out how she bathed in the reflected warmth for the Queen. To me, there was a sense of listening to someone luxuriating in the trappings of politics and power – especially if you happen to be top dog at Christiansborg during a historic constitutional event. I was reminded of Sturgeon’s abject grovelling when meeting King Charles. Her obsequious bowing and scraping to English royalty merited Olympic qualification, if a ‘Grovelling Housejock’ discipline existed.
As we know all too well, demonstrations bring provocateurs out of the woodwork. The huge march in the Siberian cold of 7th January was no different. One of these bad actors, an unashamed Zionist – Jaleh Tavakoli – was involved in a stunt. Three camera phones recorded a rather tame, ostensibly staged confrontation. But she managed, through 24/7 online agitation, to get a mention in the news. She did what ‘Manky Jaiket Man’ does at AUOB marches. She demonises Muslims, whereas Manky Jaiket attempts to discredit nationalists. Turns out, Jaleh was sentenced to three months in prison a couple of years ago. She posted a banned video online of the murder of two girls, a Dane and a Norwegian, in Marokko. Tasteless and insensitive. This was despite the parents appealing for no one to share the video. The usual low-follower bots supported her demonstration stunt on Twitter X, in what is now standard practice in the information war. It’s a template you see on Scottish Twitter X, too.
A provocateur may have managed some self-publicity and mainstream coverage, but it’s a bit different for the tens of thousands of peace protesters when it comes to the Danish state broadcaster. Usually excellent on domestic issues, the pro-Palestine marches touch on Danish foreign policy. Producers may have been on a BBC course on how to downplay huge demonstrations. There certainly seems a strange disconnect between the recent mass protests and media coverage. Which leaves us wondering who is running Danish foreign policy.
With GE2024 ahead, we can only guess as to what dirty tricks will be employed by Scotland’s colonial broadcaster. Will the Alba Party and ISP be blanked? Will Salvo or Liberation get a mention? Is the fallout from Operation Branchform about to be dropped on voters in the election run-up?
As far as voting goes, I’ve no doubt ballot-rigging will be used to destroy the nationalist vote. ‘Oh, take off your tin-foil hat, Pete,’ you may say. Fact is, London is currently engaged in regime change and dirty tricks in many countries. With so much at stake, economically and politically, why would she [England] stop at the Scottish border? We already know about the 77th Brigade, and about the vast comms budget at the Scotland Office.
But whatever the result, we’ll end up with Westminster’s undemocratic rule of Scotland. Looking forward to our liberation, a clone of Westminster won’t cut it. Europe-wide there is a dearth of political quality. Careerism has replaced statesmanship. The days of electing people for five-year terms who renege on campaign promises as soon as they’re FPTP’ed into power, is for the dustbin of history.
Just look at the list-vote Holyrood parliament, full of low-grade, under-qualified candidates, lacking life experience, and in some cases, bereft of sanity. Swiss-style Direct Democracy is the future. The people must be directly involved in the decision-making process as advocated by salvo.scot and endorsed by isp.scot
England is currently at war with Russia, Yemen, the Palestinians, and the Syrians. It has helped destroy Libya – once the most prosperous and socially advanced country in Africa. And as we know, politicians in London helped facilitate decades of violence in the north of Ireland, not to mention invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The people were opposed to these wars. Yet the millions who marched were ignored. That’s not democracy in action – it’s tyranny.
Westminster represents anti-democracy. An independent Scotland with Direct Democracy would allow the voice of the people to be heard on important issues of domestic and foreign policy. Politics is too important to be left to the careerist spivs pocketing huge salaries, while ignoring voters.
The best part of the Queen’s speech on New Year’s Eve was her appeal to our common humanity – to remember that both Israelis and Palestinians are human beings.
Unfortunately, elected PM Frederiksen has been too cowardly to condemn Israel’s horrific genocide. Ironically, she bragged about the Danish material support of Ukraine with weapons, yet offered no similar support – moral or other – for Palestine. And that’s before we recall that the words ‘negotiation’ and ‘conciliation’ have never once crossed her lips since 2022. Denmark along with the rest of the Nordics is suffering from a severe case of billy big baws, in thrall to a nation thousands of kilometres across the Atlantic – it can’t even investigate the destruction of key European undersea energy infrastructure in its maritime waters.
As you read this Frederik X will become the new Danish monarch in a low-key ceremony. There will be no English-style coronation circus. It’s all very pragmatic. I’ve no idea if the future Queen Mary feels anything for Scotland. Her Scottish parents departed our shores in the 1960s. Her father John, hails from Cockenzie. Born Mary Donaldson, she and her French-Danish Prince are three quarters of an Auld Alliance marriage! I wonder if they’ve thought about that?
peteryoung.dk 