Self promotion racket

This is entertaining. I was listening to the QAnon podcast which mentioned some events in Scotland recently. A group of ‘sovereign citizens’ and/or ‘freemen’ decided that they’d occupy Edinburgh Castle. Why, you may ask.

Members of the public were evacuated as the demonstrators entered the grounds of the castle without a ticket. Police Scotland said that officers were dealing with the protest.

Reports emerged at about 5.45pm of an incident close to the entrance to the Museum of The Royal Regiment for Scotland.

The protesters filmed their protest on Facebook Live. In a 13-minute video, a woman says the castle “belongs to the people” and that they are “taking our power back”. She adds the Scottish people have been “lied to all our lives” and that the “building belongs to us, we have taken the castle back” in an effort to “restore the rule of law”.

And:

A man adds: “Treason’s been going on for that long now, we can’t sit back and let everybody perish under the stupid legislation and fraudulent government tyranny, so let’s just take it all back, not just the castle.”

As police officers appear in the footage, the female protester told officers they were seizing the castle under article 61 of Magna Carta.

There’s a problem right there!

Magna Carta – signed by King John in 1215 – has never applied in Scotland as it predates the Act of Union

Now this may strike you as a complete waste of time, and I don’t think you’d be far wrong, but what is this Article 61 lark? 

Well, it appears that there’s some of those involved in the ‘freeman’ stuff who’ve long dabbled in this. This example here outlines the thinking that underpins it.

A woman calling herself Jacquie Phoenix and representing the mother in a bitter child-custody dispute says she has pledged allegiance to a British lord and invoked an article of the Magna Carta that means Canada’s laws and courts do not apply to her and her client. She threatened a judge with “the gallows” if he didn’t comply.

But:

“I can only guess at the scope and kind of misconduct and self-injury that results from (the Magna Carta) belief,” said the Court of Queen’s Bench judge. “But in this case I know that there is a little four-year-old girl whose health, safety, and well-being are being placed in jeopardy by these ideas.”

And:

The aristocrats cited the 1215 Magna Carta, a landmark but largely historical document now that set out the rights of British nobility under the unpopular King John. Specifically, they cited article 61, which allowed a committee of barons to seize castles and other assets of the king if he contravened provisions of the Magna Carta. Others could swear allegiance to the nobles and follow their lead.

The Judge made short shrift of this noting: …the woman has no right to represent the mother, and then dismantled the Magna Carta movement itself.

He notes that article 61 was removed from the document by 1216, and that only three, unrelated clauses remain part of the British constitution today. Meanwhile, Canada repatriated its constitution in 1982, meaning no part of the British supreme law applies here.

But this isn’t just harmless self-promoting stuff (though events like this might make you think it was – not least the stunningly bombastic language used – and the real sense of self-importance on display – btw how do people afford to fly around the planet to show up at events like that?). This account of one murder – that of a former chief justice of the Tax Court of Canada shows the pathology at work.

On foot of the above judgement one of those involved argued ““All evidence has been collected for your trial before the jury, Robert Graesser, and the people will decide your fate,” she says to the judge.”

But as noted:

Lawyer Richard Warman said there’s no indication that Robinson has violent intent. But he said it’s important to take such behaviour seriously given the history of other “sovereign law” adherents – people who claim legal systems are invalid.

He pointed to the 2007 murder of a tax court judge and two others in Ottawa by a man who had earlier threatened to put the adjudicator on trial, and the killing of several police officers in the U.S. by “sovereigns.”

“I’m not alleging that Robinson herself may go out and engage in that kind of action,” said Warman, who has long fought extremist views online. “But the risk is that somebody in the movement who sees it could be inspired to do that.”

Somewhat entertainingly the response was:

…she said Tuesday that the oath she made to a British lord under the Magna Carta does not allow her to do harm, and questioned why her words would be considered threatening.

“These allegations are ludicrous,” the Alberta resident said about Warman’s complaint. “Ask yourself ‘Why are they so scared of a tiny girl with a pen?’ ”

Well, when you suggest that evidence has been collected for a trial and someone’s fate will be decided  – and also mentioning Nuremberg – difficult not to interpret that as pointing in a certain direction.

There’s a Covid connection to this – isn’t there always, as this piece here notes.

The piece sums it up neatly:

And that’s because this document – and the assertions of law that it contains – is pure nonsense. It is a species of what regular attendees at courts will recognise as the pseudo-legal rubbish peddled by self-styled “Freemen on The Land”, a grouping of proselytising individuals who believe that by misquoting Magna Carta and basic tenets of contract law, they can somehow place themselves outside the jurisdiction of the law of England & Wales. By making various incoherent and illogical assertions cloaked in legalese, they profess to be bound by “other” laws, such as the laws of the sea or long-repealed mediaeval treaties, and claim that the legal system has no control over them.

But back to Edinburgh Castle. What exactly did those ‘occupying’ it want? What did they think it would achieve? Clearly said ‘occupation’ and the attendant PR had no effect whatsoever. It’s this gap between the rhetoric and the reality that is truly telling. It has no systemic or structural impact. And in a way it’s not meant to. It’s performative but really to no greater goal than getting screen time on Youtube or at best a fleeting mention in the news media.