Wings Over Scotland

On 31 January last year everything changed. On that date – the one when Scotland was officially dragged out of the EU because it was in the UK, despite the SNP’s repeated pronouncements that such a thing would not happen – sane people finally woke up and realised that Nicola Sturgeon had no plan to secure independence.

Almost a year later, a shrinking rump of less-sane people are still clinging desperately to a variety of irrational beliefs (there’s still a secret genius strategy waiting to be unveiled and we simply can’t give away our hand yet; Boris Johnson is an honourable democrat and will cave in if the SNP get a majority in May’s election; magic pixies on unicorns will descend from the heavens and grant Scotland its freedom), but most of us have now realised that 31 January 2021 will be just as pivotal as 31 January 2020.

Because an awful lot of stuff is about to happen in a hurry.

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Yesterday we noted that rational people arrive at decisions about things based on the facts, not the personalities of who else might support or oppose those things. But in the interests of balance, allow us to present the counterpoint.

Yesterday the SNP’s defence spokesman at Westminster cited the position of French National Front leader Marine Le Pen when arguing with someone who suggested that an independent Scotland should leave NATO.

As it happens, we agree with McDonald on NATO membership. It would be a pointless folly and an exercise in self-destructive virtue-signalling to leave an organisation which is willing to defend Scotland militarily for free because of its strategic location, and it would be extremely unpopular with the Scottish public (including SNP voters), no matter how much those on the left might wish otherwise.

His reasoning above, however, is a wretched embarrassment.

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Because 2020 is the maddest year in history, Ruth Davidson opened her contribution to Holyrood’s debate on the Brexit deal today with a lengthy quote from this website.

Because hey, why NOT, right?

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To mark today’s events, a look back at more innocent times.

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Dr Tim Rideout is one of the most serious and respected people in the Yes movement and the SNP. As convener of the Scottish Currency Group he’s presently engaged in trying to solve the party’s self-inflicted weakness over its lack of a coherent currency policy, and he’s sufficiently highly rated by SNP members that earlier this month he was elected to the party’s Policy Development Committee.

So you might think he was entitled to a view on, well, development of policy.

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If this site seems to spend most of its time being angry at the SNP these days, that’s because we are. And a large part of that is because there’s very little that hacks us off more than people insulting our intelligence.

Smith’s tweet is just a crassly offensive flat-out lie. This week’s vote is NOT about “EU membership”. The United Kingdom hasn’t been a member of the EU since 31 January. We’ve already left and there’s no going back. The vote is about whether we leave with a sliver of a trade deal slightly reducing the self-inflicted harm, or the total catastrophe of no deal at all, and it’s just crushingly embarrassing for all concerned that Smith thinks so little of his own supporters as to believe he can “frame” it otherwise.

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There is no good position for the opposition parties in the House Of Commons to take on the impending Brexit deal vote this coming week.

It’s a terrible deal, and voting for it – as Labour will do – makes you look like an idiot, especially when it completely fails the “six tests” you swore never to vote for it without. On the other hand, time is absolutely up and were it to be somehow defeated the only alternative left to the deal would be a no-deal exit, which is the only thing worse.

Which makes this look simply pathetic.

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WIDER YES MOVEMENT: Hey, why don’t some of you SNP guys come along to this event and have a friendly chat about how we can all achieve our common goal?

THE SNP: Get back in your box and mind your business, oiks.

Next year’s going to be bumpy, folks.

Honestly hard to say who’s trying to wind up Yes supporters the most here.

We’ll leave it to you to decide.

The only choice for 2020, really.

Have a peaceful one, readers.

With precisely the grim level of cynicism we’ve now come to expect as standard, the Scottish Government has released a key document relating to the Salmond inquiry two days before Christmas, hoping it’ll be buried in the ongoing coronavirus-and-Brexit-related implosion of the UK.

The document, which contains legal advice relating to the judicial review brought by Salmond regarding the Scottish Government’s investigations into false allegations of misconduct against him, is extremely heavily redacted. But a few interesting passages remain, so let’s have some fun.

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There was a time, readers, when we’d have bothered ourselves to dig out the whole series of headlines and links for this.

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