Wings Over Scotland

Good guy ?

I always had high hopes of Angus MacNeil. All he needs to do now is embrace #ScottishUDI and he can be the leader the Yes movement needs. More power to your rebellious elbow, Angus!

#EndTheUnion #ScottishUDI #NoSection30 #ManifestoForIndependence

My one concern is that there might be those in the SNP who will see this as the bit in the remake of shaft where he threw his badge like a shuriken when he resigned and accept it as his “resignation” from the party.
His hopes of any conference changing the direction of the SNP ship towards one where he would be happy to continue as an elected representative would have a higher chance of success if he actually had a vote. Then again SNP members in general having a vote about the direction of the party might be too much to ask for.

Wow! In 2015
who would’ve believed a sitting SNP MP
would make such a scathing & accurate statement?

Brave stance from him. Kudos.

Good. More need to join him

Ghostly606 – Agreed. I’m no expert but the first sentence in the fifth paragraph would read much better with “and they left” rather than a comma. But yes, well done Angus. I’m not holding out much hope that he’ll be joined by others.

Yousless is in trouble. He’s not going to make October. I sincerely hope he doesn’t qualify for the First Minister’s pension either.

Let’s see what the massive squad police investigation into Indy Swindlers delivers.

If only they’d allowed us to exercise our right to self determination we’d love them. But they don’t.

STV lunchtime news reporting this about Angus, I wondered where his redline would be.

I’m so cynical nowadays that I can’t take this at face value as anything other than a cynical play to distance himself from a rapidly toxifying brand for self.preservation purposes.
I sincerely hope I am wrong.

Bloody well said Angus!

Glad he has stood up at last. Had my fears he would either eventually be subsumed or drummed out somehow or was basically an “approved rebel”, but seems he has some plums at least. Let’s see if others have any spine and that none fold after whatever guddle is offered up in the autumn

Fighting talk from Angus. Good.

Let’s hope more join him. They can’t all be cowards – Can they ?

Humza’s days are numbered – doubleplus good.

Angus has just become target number one for the transcult. Let’s see who throws the first stone for the Sturgeonites.

P.S. Anyone else hearing Sturgeon is phoning round and getting polite but firm short shrift ? Are her little helpers trying to distance themselves from her and her ridiculous transcult ?

Let’s hope so.

I’ve always had a lot of time for Angus, but as has been said already, he could do with a proof reader! He has been the most obvious ‘rebel in waiting’ for some time, so this hasn’t come as a huge surprise. I do hope this is the start of something bigger, but I’m not counting any chickens yet.

The other thing which doesn’t surprise me is Peter Bell renewing calls for UDI, which continues to boil my urethral fluid. When are these (otherwise sensible speakers) going to realise that UDI is neither an answer to our troubles in the modern world, nor a subject which will garner any sway with the bulk of the Scottish polity?

The notion of UDI is anathema to all but the most ardent of political fantasists. Talk of UDI is simply a sure-fire method of turning ordinary people away from the idea of independence, full-stop.

I have listened to both Peter Bell and Craig Murray talk a lot of sense in meetings, but it’s as if they take a wee dram and then simply just lose the plot as they ramble off down the UDI path.

Not only would a UDI alienate Scotland from it’s neighbours in the wider world, unless there was mass public support (circa 80%) from within Scotland, it would only end in civil turmoil and ultimately bloodshed. A far cry from the likes of Czechoslovakia in 1992, which is ultimately the situation we in Scotland need to be aiming for.

If we can get to that level of public support, we won’t be needing any kind of UDI.

As far as UDI us concerned, if 100% of Scots voted for independence Westminster said “No”, we’d just shrug our shoulders and say “Sorry”?

In any case has the UDI question been posed in any polls? Has anyone sounded out our neighbours? Spain is too far away and they’re easily bought with fish.

I’m not looking to start a fight. Only that the issue comes up now and again and people are either for it or against it, but there’s never any evidence offered on the pros or cons.

God not this nonsense about the Western and Northern Isles again. Orkney has been inhabited for roughly 8,500 years. It was invaded by the Vikings in 9th century and later ceded to Scotland for non payment of dowry in 15th. It is as much Pictish as Viking. The Western Isles were part of Scotland before being ceded to Vikings then returned to Scotland.

In the unlikely event Shetland and Orkney leave Scotland, we are owed the dowry plus interest. That would bankrupt even Norway 🙂

Well, well. It is getting interesting.

Tartan Tory

UDI is exactly what you are suggesting.
80% ??? LOL!!

UDI comes after a mandate.
Not a mibbies aye, mibbies naw, mibbies I’ll think about it later.

It is a declaration made when something is won.

50% + one or with this new 80% rule of yours, does that mean Brexshit is void?

@ Tartan Tory: “UDI is anathema..”

Given that Scotland has a separate legal system from England, it cannot be the case that we are one country. And Scotland is recognised as having the Sovereignty of the People rather than “Crown in Parliament” as its constitutional basis.

Those are just 2 elements of the evidence that Scotland has a distinct existence from England. So why should Scotland behave as if it is subordinate? Why should we not assert Scotland’s right to decide?

Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you and Peter A Bell mean by the term UDI.

Stuart MacKay – [i]I’m not looking to start a fight. Only that the issue comes up now and again and people are either for it or against it, but there’s never any evidence offered on the pros or cons.[/i]

UDI generally worked for new countries right up until the first world war, although typically there was still some kind of local war over it. The United States is the most obvious one (1776), then the likes of Greece (1821), Belgium (1830) and Ireland (1919).

However, if you look during my lifetime, you begin to see a pattern of international discontent and/or civil unrest associated with any attempted UDI.

Rhodesia (1965)
Anguilla (1967)
Bangladesh (1971)
East Timor (1975)
Northern Cyprus (1983)
Palestine (1988)
Croatia (1991)
Slovenia (1991)
Bosnia/Herzegovina (1992)
Kosovo (2008)
Catalonia (2017)

The few which did succeed paid a heavy social price, as did those which failed. Looking at the list above, do you see any modern, settled, international power-house? No!

Sadly, whether we like it or not, the UK (or what might remain of it) has many political allies across the world. They may not wish to see an independent Scotland fail, but the realpolitik would mean that they would side with Westminster in any grievance. In other words, British tanks on Scottish streets would not have the international community up in arms.

Too many of them have kept their traps shut for too long so any “road to Damascus” stuff we’d maybe see now is more to do with self-preservation than what’s good for the people of Scotland.

The SNP needs destroyed completely before the independence cause can move forward. Thanks, Sturgeon – thanks for absolutely sweet fck all.

@panda paws says:12 July, 2023 at 2:54 pm

In the unlikely event Shetland and Orkney leave Scotland, we are owed the dowry plus interest

Hmmm, technically the heirs of King James III of Scotland are owed.

There’s another way of looking at it though. Shetland and Orkney are owed centuries of reparations for being colonised by first Scotland and then the UK. That will bankrupt both exchequers.

Maybes an iScotland should leave Shetland and Orkney in rUK? Let them pay the reparations.

Meantime, innarestin to see stirrings of freedom in the Western Isles. Maybes they will vote again against joining the EU, just like they did (along with Shetland) in 1975.

FWIW I’d love to see Ash Regan joining forces with Angus. Start talking to Alba and others about the Scotland United idea, get prepared for every election, no matter how small. Maybe Margaret Ferrier would be up for it too?

Tartan Tory..

No she wouldn’t have because you conveniently forget she was given repeated democratic mandates to enact it.

There you lot go, making up the rules no other fecker in the real world recognises.

A democratic ballot is UDI.

Den, are you a BBC presenter?

@ Geri

Nicola never had a proper democratic mandate for anything, and certainly not to pursue a UDI.

UDI is making up the rules no other fecker in the real world recognises.

A democratic ballot is NOT, of itself, a UDI.

Unlike the rest of them. He actually speaks the thoughts of the majority of the Yes movement. Nothing will happen in October, so will he join Alba. Or as is hoped, is this the beginning of a breakaway rainbow independence alliance party. Lets hope so.

Tartan Tory speaks agains UDI. The insistence appears to be on a majority in a referendum, in order to negotiate our departure from the UK. I’d have thought that the events of the last quarter of a century made it clear that the UK/aka Westminster will not be negotiating. It will be a flat “NO”.
The independence of the Irish Republic was made possible by the Easter Rising, not by a referendum. Subsequent to the horrors of the rising, Sinn Fein won an election. Those elected held a vote, and the vote was to declare independence.
Elected representatives in Scotland who are pro-independence have been in a majority for some time. They have not chosen to hold a vote on independence.

Paragraph 5 is the killer one, IMHO…

“I have listened to both Peter Bell and Craig Murray talk a lot of sense in meetings,”

Of course being an anathema yourself (a Tartan Tory) to a majority of Scots you’d know better than an ex-British ambassador on how we dump this undemocratic prison of a union.

The VEM as explained by Ash Regan and the Rev, is a totally viable route out of this union, a 50+1% of the vote at every election GE/Holyrood is enough to dissolve this rancid prison of a union.

As David Davis an English politician said, there’s no treaty in the world where one party has to ask the permission of the other party to leave the treaty.

As for international recognition, I recall David Cameron swanning around Europe in 2014 hoping that European countries would back his stance on telling Scots that they should remain in the union, I’m pretty sure most if not all foreign ambassadors politely told him to f*ck off.

50+1% of the vote and we’re outta here no ifs no buts.

Sigh.
In general. I disaprove of and avoid the ad-hominem attack.

In some cases, people will take it as an attack against the individual if you comprehensively destroy every single point they have typed.

Perhaps they might already have made their own first impression, and are seen as self important, arrogant or opinionated blowhards

Regular readers will have their own opinions.

Today I shall refrain from filling paragraphs with rebutting other peoples shite.

Instead I urge them to first read this.

“What is #ScottishUDI?”
link to peterabell.scot

I would then urge them to engage their brains and go and THINK about what Peter Bell has had to say. Really think about it.

If someone makes a well reasoned proposal and your attempt to rubbish it involves setting up a straw man argument to then knock it down (with fact free assertions and/or lies), then you are NOT contributing to the debate.

Individuals who say they believe in restoring Scotlands Independence should understand what that means.
Both in general: – resile from the Act of Union.
and for them: – Decolonise your mind.

😉

A little bit about Egypt’s UDI.

link to nonviolent-conflict.org

And a hundred years later the English government, nefarious as its predecessors helped destroy Egyptian democracy.

“This July 3 marks the 10th anniversary of Egyptian army chief General Abdel Fattah Sisi’s violent seizure of power in Cairo. The first democratically elected leader in 5000 years of Egyptian history, Mohamed Morsi, was swept from office, his supporters were massacred by the hundreds, and he ultimately died in prison. With US and UK support, Sisi quickly reversed any tentative democratic gains made during the country’s brief, difficult transition from the rule of longtime Western-backed autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

In the decade since Sisi’s coup, his government has systematically crushed opposition to his rule. Political parties and critical media have been banned en masse, activists, journalists, and civil society actors harassed, disappeared, tortured and jailed, and prisons transformed into hotbeds of systemic sexual violence, and other horrific abuse. It is estimated that half of Egypt’s 120,00 inmate population are currently incarcerated for political reasons, one of the highest rates in the world.”

link to thegrayzone.com

Craig Murray is spot on when he says this below.

“UK domestic law is entirely irrelevant. The Kosovo Opinion of the International Court of Justice makes crystal clear that the domestic law of the state being seceded from, is not the determining factor as to whether a secession is illegal.

Whereas the reliance by the UK Supreme Court on the criteria of the Federal Court of Canada in the Quebec judgment, over fifty years old and superseded by the cold hard fact of over 23 non-colonial secessions since, is simply laughable.

But while the right of self-determination of peoples in international law is crucial in the case of Scotland, and while Scotland undoubtedly qualifies as a “people” because it is a long established historic nation with its own legal system, culture and institutions, there is one overwhelmingly important criterion for recognition grounded in pure realpolitik.

It was long accepted as the only criterion for recognition that a state had factual, practical control of its own territory. That position has become softened by more principled considerations since the second world war, but the actual control of the territory claimed remains the most important factor in gaining international recognition.

Why did Catalonia fail where Slovenia, Kosovo and the Baltic states succeeded?

Because realpolitik rules in practice, and the Slovenians, Balts and Kosovans had obtained actual control on the ground of the land they claimed. The Catalans had not.

Physical control is not a sufficient condition for recognition – see the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus – but in effect it is a necessary condition.

The UK Establishment will never agree to Scottish Independence. Scotland’s resources are far too valuable to them. Scotland has to declare Independence unilaterally, and take it.

It is no use doing this like Catalonia, where the Spanish civil guard and judiciary effectively wiped out the nascent state before it could breathe.

A Scottish government, whether arising from the Scottish Parliament or from another body, needs in declaring Independence to ensure it has practical control of Scotland.

That means that the organs of the state have to acknowledge the Scottish state. All taxes collected must go to Edinburgh, not to Westminster. The judiciary must apply Scottish laws and not Westminster ones, where they conflict, and specifically apply all new laws post the Declaration of Independence. The police must answer only to Scottish authorities. Ultimately so must the military stationed in Scotland.

At the time Independence is declared, immediate action must be taken to ensure all civil servants, judges, police and military take an oath of loyalty to the people of Scotland and its new government, and renounce any previous loyalty to Crown and to UK political institutions. Anybody refusing must be summarily dismissed from their positions.

We have the example of Catalonia before us. We also have the example of Egypt’s only ever democratically elected leader, President Morsi, who died horribly in jail after being overthrown by a CIA coup because he failed to take the elementary precaution of dismissing and imprisoning all the military regime’s corrupt judges. He should have learnt from Fritz Bauer.

Let us not make those mistakes.

Ultimately, it boils down to this.

1) Westminster will never agree to Scottish Independence.

2) Scotland therefore has no option but to declare Independence unilaterally.

3) Any independent state must be prepared to defend itself by physical force from foreign attack. So must a newly declared Independent Scotland.

4) All who refuse to serve an Independent Scotland must then be removed from all organs of the state.

5) Once an Independent Scotland has physical control of its territory and resources, international recognition will soon follow. Brexit has completely changed the political atmosphere with regard to the crucial attitude of the European Union to London’s government.”

While I note and respect the many good posts here (and on previous threads throughout the site in general) about our need to gain international recognition of our right to independence, is it not a cause for concern that the EU has, at best, kept its cards extremely close to its chest? Their reticence to get involved in 2014 was understandable, given their wish to appear impartial and not to interfere in the internal constitution of a member state, but a commonly held trope among Indy supporters is that the EU would be receptive to our accession, firstly because of our embarrassment of resources and secondly as a PR coup against the big bad UK. Isn’t their silence deafening now?

Perhaps those who advocate EFTA/EEA (including Alba) are more in touch with the realpolitik here? That said, while I would prefer this option a la Norway and Iceland (my second choice would be EU membership but with our own currency a la Sweden and Denmark) I would also question whether a Scottish accession would have the bargaining power to gain the same terms (i.e. rebate, permanent opt-out on Euro) as the UK enjoyed, by virtue of our size as well as the EU’s desire not to accede power in the post-Brexit climate.

Am I right that in the IndyRef his constituency voted against Independence by 53.42%? Genuine question.

Great post there from ROS @ 0458pm However, “ ultimately so must the military stationed in Scotland “ ( answer to Scottish authorities ) . Therein lies a problem ROS . Remember the coercion prior to the 1707 treaty, with English troops on the Scottish border . ? What proportion of “ British forces “ stationed in Scotland would “ take an oath of loyalty to the people of Scotland” ?

@JohnMain

The Vikings invaded, they WERE the colonisers. Previously the islands were inhabited by Picts, prior to them neolithic tribes. Still if we want to go back to Viking times, most of England bar Wessex belongs to Denmark.

Sadly, one has to ask, how many indigenous folks are left on Skye?

Always good to see a crack in the pro-Indy dam, and dissent among the supporters.

Our cities are filthy with rats. Vandalism. Empty shop units. Homeless people sleeping. Soup kitchens. Filth. Destitution and disease.

The fringe last year was absolutely horrendous. The bin strikes. Horrific. A filthy city. With a Military Tattoo signing God Save the King.

Our country has gone to the fucking dogs.

Panda Paws: absolutely agree. It has been established from numerous archeological digs that the people of Shetland and Orkney were the same as those on the mainland at that time. The Vikings were colonizers who probably butchered many of the indigenous people, enslaving many and impregnating many of the female population (supposition based on evidence from other Viking settlements such as York) before making a land grab and settling down to farm and fish as the indigenous people had done. So, basically, the islanders want away from their Scottish roots, destroyed by the Vikings and back to their colonizers? Ach well, hope they don’t let the door hit their nethers on the way out. Alternatively, they want to remain with rUK, that great philanthropist to the south? When Scotland becomes independent, it is to be hoped that a constitution will be drawn up that affords them far more autonomy than they enjoy at present. Up to them.

Stuart MacKay: Agree again. I’d go further. Bring back power to the local level as it was in the days of the burghs. Most things ran smoothly because the people on the burgh councils actually lived eiter within, or around, the burgh locality and understood the needs, etc. of their own people. It appears now as if we will be returning to the old rates system, although they call it council tax, by taxing those with big homes. Quelle Surprise! I predict that every aspect of public services and utilities will be returned to people (via state) control within the next fifty years, or sooner. Almost everything that privatization has touched has turned to dust, the marrow sucked out, as many of us said at the time would be the result.

The myth is that nationalization (state-owned) is the problem, but it is myth. The only businesses/services that serve well locally, and in private hands, are SMEs. Everything else, if it serves the public and is in private hands serves only the shareholders and the CEOs. Corporates are, by their very nature, globally-inclined and with no feeling for local needs and wants, and their natural resources, including their labour, a resource to be stolen and plundered at will. All services and institutions that exist to serve the public and draw their resources from local and central communities’ assets and resources need to be in public hands or they will always cheat and deceive the people and make them pay through the nose for what is theirs by right. I would hope that, when the English water companies return to the state, the CEOs and plunderers will be jailed and their personal assets frozen, to be used to off-set the catastrophe they have created. The cost to the public tax-payer will always be far more under privatization than it could ever have been under state-ownership.

That might be socialism, the jury’s out on that, but what it actually is, is common sense, sadly lacking in every political party in Scotland and the UK – and that includes the SNP which is up to its neck in handing away Scotland’s (and the people’s) natural resources for a song. It makes me laugh bitterly when I hear the supposedly left-wing Greens and the SNP ‘wokerati’ bump their gums about saving the planet when they are both so intent on selling Scotland to the lowest bidder at bargain basement prices, ensuring the planet’s destruction by the very global corporate interests they pretend to despise. They are enablers of the destruction of Scottish interests, and their form of ‘left-wing’ politics’ is the hard-left bampot, ‘just be kind’ variety that would ensure the detriment to Scotland, the country they purport to serve – and in more ways than one – and Scotland’s women and children are the front-line casualties and sacrifices in this insane self-destruction. Perhaps they could explain to us how, in a country that has a low birth rate, where the NHS is always under threat, condemning children to sterilization and life-long medical care makes sense when all the available evidence, from several countries, points to these children growing out of their ‘gender dysphoria’ which presents very much like a social contagion?

Council taxes going up. 22 per cent it says in the news. Mortgages up £500. I despair.

We need action now. We need help now. We need Independence and polticians with a spine to fight for us.

Meanwhile, the SNP have issued proposals to put up council tax by 17.5% for band G properties, which my flat in Edinburgh is. It’s let out, to good tenants who pay their rent every month, look after the place, and have been there for 6 years.

I’m not going to pass that on to them, because they are good tenants, but there’s a fast approaching limit to what’s acceptable from Holyrood. There’s no actual detail in the proposal as to what Scot Gov are going to spend the money upon.

Shouldn’t he have stayed and fought with other like-minded members to rescue the party which was once the best hope for independence? Or is it personally more important for him to retain the seat by standing as an independent, also swerving the coming opprobrium when the electoral commission and maybe the police assess the party accounts? “Oh yeah, I used to be in the SNP, but that was before it went bad.” See also Mhairi Black, albeit with a different explanation. Who’s next?

A Scot abroad at 723pm,

Of course council tax has to go up in Edinburgh, they need extra money to pay for more stupid traffic hindrance and road blockade schemes – or as they call it ‘spaces for tourists people’

A cause for cautious optimism nae doobt!

But I think the time for an organised rebellion with significant MPs and MSPs moving to Alba or another group (ISP?) is not now.

I think they should wait until the SNP have a bad Westminster result and then go. Humza will be at his weakest and with the SNP in the Doldrums (literally) the initiative will be with the Alba Partisans.

So a possible timeline for a pro- independence victory at Holyrood:

October 2024: Westminster election and SNP lose 15-20 seats

November 2024 Leading SNP Figures move to ALBA

Spring 2025 Alex Salmond becomes President of ALBA, and Ash Regan becomes ALBA leader in the Scottish Parliament

Summer 2025. More SNP MPs defect to ALBA

May 2026: ALBA win more seats than SNP and offer coalition 🙂

Game on!

He is hoping to stand for the SNP after “clarification” in October.

“Clarification” or not, it is clear to any genuine independence supporter that the SNP has been corrupted beyond redemption.

I don’t trust MacNeil either and I wonder what folks here will be saying after he does an Erdogan in October.

The curse of gentrification.

You didn’t think when the peasants were forced out that the peasant prices that would stay? Awww, bless.

Hike it up. The English beer tents won’t pay for themselves you know..

Eric

He’s said for yrs.
Plan B. Use Holyrood elections.

This is going to be a scattergun comment. A lot from above to address, some observations:

Regarding Angus MacNeil. I don’t know the man at all. While I cautiously congratulate his letter, is that really the best he can do? Uninspiring wording and worryingly late to (leave) the party. The SNP long ago ceased to have anything approaching a credible plan for independence. As some posters suggest, this belated action has more than a whiff of self preservation about it. I can save him a bit of time now and tell him now that the SNP will have as much of a plan for indy after October as they do now & have had for years. They’re gone. Let go. Move on. So whats it really going to be Angus?

My job regularly takes me all over Scotland including Orkney & the Western Isles. It gives me a broader understanding of these places than most people I know in the central belt. I’m totally for independence but when I’m in Stornoway or Kirkwall my thoughts are ‘no way should Edinburgh be telling this lot whats best for them’. When we get indy (it’s inevitable), it’s essential Portree isn’t dictated to from Inverness and Bowmore is not ruled from Edinburgh.

As a quick sidestep, I was told recently on Islay that last year, the UK exchequer received £280-300m in whisky tax from Islay alone. They got back about £5m. You should see the state of the roads in Bowmore right now (I cannot substantiate the figures, local hearsay, but the roads are shocking).

Orkney. I was in Kirkwall for the recent Scotland v Georgia qualifier watching the match in the only bar in town showing the game. It was a staunch Scottish supporting crowd by any measure. Loads of Scotland tops. Massive cheers at the goals. No Norway tops, norse languages or lamentations that Scotland’s likely qualification would come at Erling Haaland’s expense. They appeared pretty Scottish and proudly so. How that translates to political support is more complicated.

The headline reporting around ‘Orcadian cessation’ has been quite amusing. Mostly self sufficient why shouldn’t they discuss if the current method of governance is best? Why shouldn’t anyone be entitled to? So the Britnat media with a Scottish indy shadow hanging over it has to hype and distort it like they’re fucking off to Norway. I bet they don’t.

Mainland Scots might not know that what we’d call ‘the mainland’, Orcadians refer to it as ‘Scotland’. The biggest island in the Orkney islands is called “Mainland”. So they are Scottish, they support Scotland, but Scotland is still a wee boat journey away!!! As I said, not straightforward. Regarding the Viking/Pictish heritage. Is any of that really relevant? We’re woefully ignorant of our history in Scotland. The Norse influence was massive 800-1200 years ago. But before that the Picts. Before that the Romans. Before that…???? Check out the Ness of Brodgar which I think will usurp the mind blowingly impressive Heart of Neolithic Orkney for our historical understanding of the lands we now call Scotland.

Regarding Skye. If you speak to a resident, it’s about 50/50 if you’ll hear a Scottish or English accent. My last visit was 3 English to 2 Scottish. Dont think Ive ever heard gaelic there in roughly 400 visits.

Outer Hebrides. Almost always hear gaelic at some point when I’m there. Still very traditional in many ways eg crofting, peat cutting. Get plenty of Scottish vibes, but also UK/British, not averse to a union flag in Lewis. A lot of Rangers fanaticism.

Thanks if you’ve read til the end!!!

Dear Angus,

WTF kept you?

Yours aye,

RK

Confucius say: One could always sell one’s expensive extra house located abroad if one feels the taxes it attracts are unbearable.

FFS, the council tax increase hasn’t even been implemented yet and the whining from NuEnglish has already started.
Is someone finally going to have a light bulb moment and begin to understand what it feels like not having the government and policies they want.
Now maybe try considering and acknowledge how Scots have felt since halfway through last century and I might just begin to consider giving a flying fuck!

@Geri
Sturgeon surely comproimised (kompromat), effectively taken out of the game, if she was ever in it.

Re whisky revenues et al, we need to document it all and tot it hp. Inform and educate, to combat the colonial too wee, too poor, too stupid.

JockMcT

Aye, I have my doubts she was ever in it too.

Scotland had Westminster by the short & curlies after the NO vote promising Devo max, near federalism, the strongest parliament in the history of man – she came out those negotiations with road signs FFS! *Smacks head*

So 2015 GE &2016 was the prime time to call indy & she blew that too..

It’s obvious she was a Britnat. Ticking along & keeping us on the road to nowhere.

Re Whisky

Ash Regan proposed that too. Scotland to start keeping its own records & accounts. (interview with McKenna)
The membership rejected her too so the whole party is captured, imo. It needs ejected from Holyrood & WM as soon as possible.

Well Brendan Angus MacNeil who after trying hard for so long has now made it crystal clear. The SNP are no good for independence

Nor are they any good for the communities that Angus Brendan MacNeil represents.

Nor are they any good for the Hebridean community that Angus Brendan MacNeil represents. An SNP party that wanted to shut down fishing and destroy the fragile communities that have rely on fishing.

And SNP that has utterly failed to provide lifeline ferry services to the Islands.

An SNP that support ever more land Scottish land ownership in the hands of billionaire super rich and their offshore ownership structures.

And an SNP that has no end of effort promoting trans rights where male rapists can request to be housed in women’s prisons and where the government has spent a fortune rewriting policies and procedures requiring our teachers to teach our primary children about a jar of Nuttella and a banana, and how this is natural and right.

MacNeil has had enough. He knows the SNP are Death Alley and that Humza and the clowns are too stupid to care as they bury a once great party.

But the movement is not dead. Good men and women can leave the SNP and stand on an independence ticket whilst the sleaze balls can wither and die. as they absolutely will.

So absolutely yes, I see MacNeil’s move as the start of the realignment of the independence vote. Putting Scotland First is a vote winner and frankly who needs the SNP wasters.

has failed to provide lifeline services to the islands communities. A party in government and no good for the Hebrides. And he’s absolutely right. Shut the fishing down, fuck the local fishing communities, fuck the need for lifeline ferries, to cite a few glaring examples. Why would you now vote SNP when the action is all about a woke Asian focussed on the promotion of perversion. Third place in the recent by election tells you how anti white, pro trans, Westminster fan boy and his continuity party are going.

Wishes I hadn’t googled Bananas & Nutella.

FFS!! My eyes!!

They’ve lost the friggin plot to think this was acceptable teaching. Pupils can leave with low literacy skills but as long as they have a master’s in anal sex there’ll always be a job in the sex industry.

Another mad policy from the porno obsessed Greens.

Confused

LMAO! Bravo!

Places joining other places..

*Buckles with laughter*

It’s the denouement of the SNP, sadly. It’s worse than any of us currently understand. Worse is still to come. I don’t take any satisfaction out of witnessing it, but they don’t represent any of us. The people who write in here are honest Nationalists. I don’t just now agree with them but I have respect for their honestly held views. That is the mark of a democracy and I have no trouble with that. I have watched Sturgeon and Swinney for years and I knew that it was always going to end like this. The speed of it has surprised me, but that’s all. By the way my party, the Labour Party, are exactly the same. Neither will recover because once you get involved and get caught, it is over.

Yes, the SNP is buggered.

The sepraratistas are merely fractured and squabbling like rats in a sack.

Meanwhile, Scotland struggles along.

It’s all a bit sad, really.

Geri @ 00.26

I truly hate to say this, however it was the SNP’s Mr Swinney who was Education Secretary when this was approved for use in the teaching aids handbook for school use, as I recall.
It created quite an outcry at the time, and there was a vid on Youtube of, I believe, Richard Lucas possibly confronting Swinney at a public meeting and Swinney saying he had no issues at all in defending the policy.
I’m certainly not suggesting that the make believe “Greens” in the our administration aren’t right into this type of sick indoctrination for children, however Ms Sturgeon’s right hand man was publicly up for this years ago.

Confused at 1252am,

Haha, very well said. Your last paragraph needs re-quoting, as it is a gem of reality the English and britnats will NEVER recognise.

QUOTE “..but to the norwegian the UK is a poverty ridden shithole, propped up by what they steal from Scotland and launder from the rest of the world, with delusions of grandeur of a past long gone, fat women with too much makeup, shitty food, overloaded with a bizarre self love and determination not to speak anyone elses language; costume dramas as culture and costume drama as high politics, a political class shaped by buggery in the “public” schools whose main hobby becomes molesting kids in orphanages protected by special branch “

Geri says:
13 July, 2023 at 1:52 am
Confused

” LMAO! Bravo!

Places joining other places..

*Buckles with laughter* ”

ABruce says:
13 July, 2023 at 5:24 am
Confused@ 12:52

” From day to day you just get better. ”

Agreed .

Our man’s skewering of the monkeys with keyboards on here n elsewhere is a hilarious delight : combined with the incisiveness of his perceptions , he is one of WOS’ finest contributors .

Do you have literary ambitions , C ? Your writing def merits wider exposure

As Stu says, those left in the SNP who are genuinely and not just notionally pro-indy must follow Angus McNeil’s lead and leave that wasted party.

@Eric says:13 July, 2023 at 8:06 am

He needs to get more than 50% of the voters to vote Yes, how will he achieve that?

Simples, Eric, show us the fucking money!

It’s just Scottish exceptionalism to claim that uniquely amongst all the peoples of the world, we are immune to the lure of cold, hard, disposable, cash.

It was James Carville who famously said, “It’s the economy, stupid!” Carville was an elections strategist for then-Governor Bill Clinton, and he helped Clinton beat President George H.W. Bush in 1992 in the midst of a recession that left many Americans out of work and in debt.

I know, that’s the evil, Satanic empire and all that Student Grant guff, but the principle remains true, even today, and even in Yousaf’s brave new Scotland.

“He needs to get more than 50% of the voters to vote Yes, how will he achieve that?”

Eric,
We’re all part of trying to get Unionists to look in the mirror, we’re all part of trying to get Unionists to wake up, we’re all part of trying to deprogramme the nonsense in people’s heads about making our own choices.

Eric, how would you go about convincing people to be captain of a ship called Destiny?

Lobert Louis, by coining it in do you mean making a living?
Ignorant twat.

Angus is well out of it, trust me. These proposed council tax changes for band E and above are an electoral suicide note.

Talk about being totally tone deaf. Wow. The SNP are going to get massacred IMHO. People are talking about 2017 as a comparison but I think it is going to be far worse.

All of this arsehole behaviour is really starting to stack up, it is piling up, and there is a simmering anger brewing… when it ignites it is going be explosive.

And yet again their neo marxist roots are showing, clobbering the people already paying the most. The Greens’ incompetent and tedious little pawprints are all over this.

And for what? People are already paying a ridiculous amount in council tax for some of the shitiest services known to man. I personally loathe my local council with a purple passion. I’d scrap the lot of them.

I’m going to post up one last item for today and it’s about Debt versus GDP.

In my opinion, one of the best Chancellors we had was Philip Hammond. He, by the way, stopped PFI. We in Scotland have kept it running and that is part of the cause of our financial black-hole.

Hammond worked off spread-sheets (does anyone think Shona Robison even knows what a spreadsheet is?) and he brought the annual deficit down until it was almost zero.

That is what someone needs to do now. It takes a lot of government joined-up effort to do that and you need to be good. I cannot see any evidence of that being a priority in Scotland. I wish that were not the case, but it is.

Once Debt becomes a shrinking proportion of GDP, then you can start to relax. The banking crash, Covid and all the rest of it has meant that the UK has lost sight of that, but it beginning to re-focus again now.

Scotland is not doing that and that is a problem.

The UK has always had debt. It used to stand at around 1Trillion, which is a thousand Billion. It was then doubled due to Fred Goodwin and Co.

@Mac 9:17am succinctly put. Two certainties in life death and taxes. It’s not the fact the council tax is going up (only way is up from here on in) the size of the proposed increase and it is 110% to cover up government incompetence.The amount of Scottish taxpayers money the SNP/Greens have wasted is atrocious how much money earmarked for councils has had to be diverted in the budget to support Ferguson marine for eg. almost £500m for two ferries being built in Inverclyde and now we all have to pay the price whilst they ride off into the sunset having totally fucked everything up.

@ Captain Yossarian

What if you considered using the term fully empowered regionalist rather than nationalist, if the latter is somehow too negative a term for you.
Coming from my engineering background I surveyed the dire political state / State we are in with a view of how it could be repaired. I considered numerous factors such as the significant population number disparity with their differing political outlooks, along with asset and resource management and associated trading requirements, plus numerous other competing aspects between the two Kingdoms that form this supposedly equal Union.

I’m naturally more of an anti-corruptionist and sensible policy kind of person than I am a hardcore nationalist, but I realise that the only way to begin to address the issues that have blighted us and our land for far too long is to have far more direct control over our elected representatives.
But this just isn’t possible within the current UK framework as we can so easily observe that the politicians are just taking the utter piss.
Stu created a sidebar of images at the top of the page on righthand side with The Notional groundhog day headlines just stringing folk along year after year, yet it never comes to fruition to resolve the constitutional elephant in the room. Instead we get the likes of genderwoowoo, flawed deposit return scheme, flawed national care scheme, flawed ferry procurement, etc etc.
Such crap administration means many don’t want to vote for the people and Parties that created this dire local Scottish situation, but yoons will then rock up saying if SNP don’t get over as certain threshold then Indy is dead for X amount of years.
That may suit the yoons on some superficial argument level, but importantly it doesn’t some how nullify the similar but much larger aspect that significantly more bad policy and corruption happens in Westminster under London Rule.
Scotland cannot resolve that larger UK issue due to the aforementioned 10 to 1 democratic advantage the Kingdom of England has over Scotland that basically locks Scotland into being a passenger in UK rather than a driver.

As an engineer you should be able to assess a project and work out if a course of action will ever result in a satisfactory end product. Embarking on a futile exercise is just plain stupid.
I suggest that as Scotland hasn’t had the fully empowered government it wanted in well over half a century it proves that we are politically compromised, and this situation will continue to allow the exploitation of our people and assets and resources with little if any benefit to Scotland until we return to self-governing status.

@Breastplate (9.17) –

Thanks for the mention of the Jappy clip. It deserves to be seen far and wide.

The link is copied again, below, for those who may wish to see it.

Quite mind-boggling, and you have to wonder why Alba don’t make more of this given that it was Salmond who kept digging for the truth. And what an answer he finally got – turned out that from 1979 to 1997, Scotland had contributed approx £27,000,000,000 more to the UK Treasury than it ever got back.

And here we are a further 26 years on, no sign of that pesky oil drying up anytime soon. What must that figure be now?

Aside from anything else, it’s really moving to see Jappy, an old man in 2014, doing his best to summarise a life’s work in a crie de coeur with calm and dignity. Four years later he was dead.

And we’ll never get to the bottom of what they did with all that ‘bonanza’.

link to youtube.com

Den, that does not surprise me regarding the ferries and the councils being underfunded as a result.

I read that for the amount of money that has been spent on two ferries that are still not ready if they had went with the yard in the Netherlands they would have had 10 or 12 ferries in working service by now. I think it was 12… it is shocking.

Those ferries by themselves are an absolute scandal and it reeks of huge amounts of corruption and its constant companion, incompetence.

It is just everywhere you look at this point and these are not small things.

And we have a SNPG living in cloud cuckoo land. Piloted by a political version of Stockton Rush, an incompetent, vastly over confident woke berk.

The implosion is inevitable.

It is not a question of IF but WHEN.

In other news…

link to news.sky.com

Sky News also reporting in the article that the SNP Research Group has received nearly £1.5m in public funds since the last UK GE. To do what exactly? Try to figure out if a Woman can have a penis?

I should imagine he will “be standing at the next election in Na j-Eileanan an lar on an independence platform” but as an independent candidate on the ballot paper.

@Stuart MacKay says:13 July, 2023 at 10:49 am

“Nobody here can show you the money. But you know that already. it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees. We all know which group you belong to”

That’s me telt, eh?

Fine Stuart, I’ll awa and work on just having faith.

[gasp] Just [Hnnngg] Have [Rrrrr] Faith [pant pant]

Word in your shell-like though. Alf will be along in a mo to accuse you of racism and colonialism, dissing a Sovereign Scot like that.

30 seconds on Google tells me there are 4.2 mill Scots voters, no doubt split across Sovereign and New categories. So upwards of 2 mill for you still to persuade. Try to do it without insulting them – you may get better results.

On the plus side “Just Have Faith” works on a T-shirt. If you or anybody else can flog 2 mill of these, you will have seen all the money you will ever need.

John Main

Sorry, I don’t do faith. With ingenuity and determination Scotland in large part dragged the West out of the shackles of faith. We already know we have what it takes. All that is needed is the opportunity.

It’s a pity you just don’t trust your countrymen not to make a hash of it. You’d rather sit in your cell because you’re too frightened to see if the door in unlocked.

Stuart MacKay @ 10:49 am

“John Main,Nobody here can show you the money.”

Yes, JM is on the wrong track. Polling in Northern Ireland found that over 90 per cent of those with a British identity would still reject Irish unification even if there was a financial incentive to support it. Money is therefore not the main issue in the constitutional question, the issue is one national identity, and hence our culture, language, and national consciousness.

In other words ‘No’ voters tend to mostly have a British identity/culture/language, whereas Yes voters mostly have a Scottish identity/culture/language.

People then need to consider what it is that gives a native Scot a British identity/culture/language, whilst those from rest-UK or extraction (1 million+) will tend to hold a British identity already. Here we also get into the realm of cultural/colonial assimilation in changing a national identity, which is a form of oppression.

Alf Baird,

people need to consider nothing that you suggest. That’s academic wankery, indulged in only by academic wankers.

They only need to think about Yes or No.

Alf Baird

There is another dimension. It’s learned helplessness or they’ve simply given up trying to better themselves and do the heavy lifting for the people around them.

There’s certainly a colonial aspect to that, but that’s not the whole story. You can certainly get the same effect from local sources.

Main’s real problem is that he doesn’t want to try. He’d rather sit there throwing stones because the long slow decline of the status quo where the UK falls into putrefaction is preferable to trying to do things differently.

I’d hazard a guess its the military.

@Stuart MacKay says:13 July, 2023 at 12:20 pm

Main’s real problem is that he doesn’t want to try

Maybes aye, maybes naw.

Indy’s real problem is that it has no evolutionary route to improving the lives of ordinary Scots.

So all that is left is the revolutionary routes – Just Have Faith and jump anyway, or minority-imposed UDI.

And you’re right Stuart, Main fancies neither of these options. Too much easily accessible history about the startling lack of success of revolutionary movements poisons it for me.

I’ll sit on the fence until things improve – solid, costed, practical, pragmatic, real world policies, driven by competent, hard-working politicians and civil servants, headed up by an articulate, charismatic, inspirational leader, all democratically supported by a majority of Scots voters.

Tedious, boring and Sunday Post material I am sure, but I’m getting too old for excitement.

Frankly, what’s so fucking difficult about it anyway? Our aspirational role models in Europe manage to do this. Why can’t we?

Ireland […] will see population increases of between 10-32%

None of whom are Irish. The Irish people are rapidly being replaced and are on a trajectory to become a minority group in Ireland.

But at least they’re “independent”, eh?

Red

That’s because it’s the COUNTRY that’s gaining it’s independence.
The inhabitants can be who the hell they like.

Red says:
13 July, 2023 at 1:28 pm
Ireland […] will see population increases of between 10-32%

“None of whom are Irish. The Irish people are rapidly being replaced and are on a trajectory to become a minority group in Ireland.”

Hee,hee,hee. “More irish than the Irish.”

In 1596 the Elizabethan poet Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–13 January 1599) whilst employed as part of the English administration in Ireland,[4] paraphrased the saying in his controversial treatise, A View of the Present State of Irelande. In the treatise, the characters Eudoxus and Irenius discuss how those sent over by the King of England Henry II to colonise Ireland, eventually became more Irish in outlook than the Irish themselves

…….

“Eudoxus: What is that you say, of so many as remayne Englishe of them? Why are, not they that were once English, abydinge Englishe still?

Irenius: No, for the most parte of them are degenerated and growen almost meare Irishe, yea, and more malicious to the Englishe then the very Irish them selves”[5]

Robert Louis, I suggest you go back to bed, then exit from the other side. Basically, in reply, what John Main said.

I did not say there are no gaelic speakers on Skye. Of course Ive heard of the gaelic college. I’m even aware they teach it in the schools. I know and have stayed with first language gaelic speakers. But not once have I heard it, specifically, 2 or more people in an independent conversation using gaelic. Not once.

Regarding me apparently being divisive and doing the Britnats work for them, my apologies, I didn’t realise that Scotland was a singular hive mind with no differences at all. My observations were clearly completely wrong and without merit.

Sarcasm aside, to be clear on my view, Scotland is a country that should govern itself. It should do so with a balanced devolved system that allows all of our glorious diversity to prosper under one collective national banner. Doing the Britnats work!!! Dont make me laugh.