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brushed over. Some inconvenient documents have been largely ignored,
while imaginative interpretations have been placed on others as successive
academics have tried to bolster their reputations. What has been lacking is
an objective legal analysis and a willingness to contemplate the possibility
that the Crown and the governments of the time may not always have been
totally scrupulous in their treatment of Shetland – and that applies to this
day.
At the time of writing this sixth edition we are seeing the aftermath of
Brexit and the chaos of Covid. The grand sounding Lerwick Declaration
by the late Alex Salmond sank without trace. The Shetland Islands
Council, Orkney Islands Council and Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western
Isles Council) have pursued a course of asking for more powers from
Scotland and the United Kingdom to be returned to the islands. Amid a
fanfare of publicity and spending of public money, the ‘Our Islands, Our
Future’ campaign was dedicated to doing just that.
It was another sop to make people think something was being done.
Lumping together the Western Isles, which nobody disputes are part of
Scotland, with Orkney and Shetland, which nobody can prove are part
of Scotland was a cynical attempt to bury the question. Before asking
for those powers, Orkney and Shetland should first have asked the
question ‘Do the powers we are asking for belong to those we are
asking?’ There is no evidence that they do. The very act of asking aids
and abets a fraud that has been going on for centuries. Those who have
usurped power here will not easily let it go. They are well infiltrated
into the fabric of Shetland society and have shown themselves to be
interested only in enriching themselves at our expense.
By making a request based on island identity rather than making a claim
based on legal rights, the campaign (intentionally, I think) betrays Orkney
and Shetland. We now have incontrovertible proof that the people of
Shetland have innate sovereignty. Sovereignty means that we can do
whatever we wish without asking for permission.
It is almost universally presumed that Orkney and Shetland are part of
Scotland. If that is true, it should be easy for those exercising power here
to demonstrate the basis of their power. When exactly did Orkney and
Shetland become part of Scotland? How did it happen? Is there a document?
Is there a treaty? All perfectly reasonable questions, but nobody can give
an answer to any of them. The reason is simple – it never happened.
Historians will write books, ‘interpret’ the facts and come up with a
plausible story, but only a court of law can give a legal determination.
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