Readers may have noticed recent speculation in the media (based on the wording of a press release) that Police Scotland had ended their investigations regarding Operation Branchform. As it happened we’d already submitted a Freedom Of Information request aimed at finding that out, and the response arrived this evening.
As alert Wings readers will know, we’re fond of a WW2 analogy from time to time. The conflict is so extensively documented, and so deeply embedded in British culture (for both good and ill), that it’s a reliable tool for getting points across concisely and clearly.
(It’s also one of the last major wars in which, overall, the good guys and the bad guys were pretty indisputably easy to identify.)
So let’s keep that in mind for a moment while we look at this.
For 10 years in Germany between 1935 and 1945, Jewish people were not legally human. The Nuremberg Laws, drafted in large part by Wilhelm Stuckart, established the principle in law that Jews were to be denied any rights on the basis that they were untermensch, a German word literally meaning “subhuman”.
It would be, to say the least, highly controversial for anyone to put forward in 2025 the idea that Jewish people had actually ceased to be human beings during that period, even though the various laws had been passed by a legitimately-elected government in peacetime and attracted little in the way of international condemnation.
The truth is that regardless of what the law said, Jewish people remained humans for the whole time, which is why Nazi war criminals were tried after the war for “crimes against humanity”. The passing of a law had had absolutely no effect on their biological reality. (Other than that it led to millions of them being murdered, of course.)
But anyway. Nicola Sturgeon.
Is the above how she imagined her feminist legacy, do you think, readers?
Robin McAlpine published a very important piece yesterday, detailing how the SNP is about to become even more of a leadership dictatorship than it already is.
You can read the article to see why this is a change of enormous importance, and a catastrophic one for the independence movement. It will make it just under 17 times harder for any sitting SNP leader to be challenged for the leadership – let alone defeated – and effectively turns the party into a private oligarchy every bit as total and unaccountable as that of Reform (which is not a member-directed political party in the conventional sense, but a limited company personally owned by Nigel Farage, who holds a majority of the voting shares and can do whatever he pleases with it).
We’re annoyed at ourselves, because we got sent the document revealing the change a month ago, but we missed it. And now we’re going to show you why.
Since it was founded back in November 2011, Wings Over Scotland has been solely financed by its readers. The site has never carried any advertising, we have no secret corporate backers, everything we do is funded by transparent voluntary donations and subscriptions, mostly of a few pounds a month.
We have the freedom to write what we believe, thanks to you, our readers. And since those earliest days, opponents have tried to end that freedom by blocking our funding.
Just a quick bit of housekeeping here with regard to the new Wings comments section, which offers far more functionality but has also attracted a few complaints because it’s no longer a straight chronology of oldest-to-newest tweets.
(We could actually change that back, but the cost would be losing the ability to reply directly to individual comments, which is a big loss, so we’re leaving it as it is for now.)
To those beefing because that means you can’t now immediately tell which comments are new, a couple of helpful pointers. The easiest way to fix the problem is a simple one: keep the tab open.
If you keep the most recent page open in a tab on your browser, the Comment Bubble (visible at the bottom left of that pic) will keep track of all new comments – it refreshes every 30 seconds – and highlight them for you in yellow until you’ve read them.
(The little orange circle should take you to the first unread one if you click it.)
Sadly the Bubble stops working if you close the tab or navigate to a new page from it, but since most people have scores of tabs open at a time that shouldn’t be a problem. So there you go.
Thanks to the dedication of our legal team in working over the Easter holiday, Wings has unexpectedly received the formal Opinion of legal counsel (hereafter called “the Opinion”, capitalised to avoid confusion with the ordinary use of the word in the article) with regard to the standing of the site in the light of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, which comes into force tomorrow.
We publish the Opinion below, partly to assist those worried about the Act’s impact on them but unable to afford their own legal advice.
But we also do so to place Police Scotland on notice that anything published by Wings Over Scotland is done in the light of the greatest possible care having been taken to ensure compliance with the law, and that in such a context any future attempt/s to improperly interfere with our rights of free expression under Article 10 of the European Convention On Human Rights (ECHR) will be viewed with regard to pursuing the maximum available recourse for wrongful restriction of our lawful activities.
We have both funds and the will to pursue such action.
So, it being Good Friday, we’re definitely not going to receive our legal opinion before Monday now, so Wings Over Scotland will be shutting down, at least temporarily, on Sunday evening. No posts will be visible on the site and our Twitter account will be either locked down or deactivated while we await advice on whether either can return.
In the meantime you can hear of any developments, or get in touch, on my personal account @RevStu or on @TheGhostOfWings, both of which have had, or are about to have, all their old tweets wiped.
We’re not going to overdramatise, because we hope this is only for a few days. We’re optimistic that the Scottish Government’s abysmal, sinister and totalitarian Hate Crime Act, opposed across every sector of Scottish society and even by the police charged with implementing it, will not put an end to 12 and a half years of political journalism.
The great unknown in the SNP leadership contest is an extremely significant one: who are the voters? Nobody but Peter Murrell really knows how many members the party has, but almost nobody believes the claimed number of over 100,000. (Our guess, based on pretty much nothing but a gut feeling, is 75,000 plus or minus 5000.)
But more to the point, nobody knows who they are. The average member age in most political parties is over 50, and according to figures published in 2019, more than 80% of SNP members are over 40, with half of those being over 60. There’s also an almost 3:2 bias in favour of men.
(We haven’t had any contact from Twitter about it, people just noticed the account was live again last night and told us about it, so we don’t know what the reason was.)
It’s still quite a shocking read even half a decade down the line.
We’ve only actually had 93 posts on trans issues in those five years, or an average of about one every three weeks. We know it feels like more. And we know that some of you thought we’d gone mad when we started warning about it.
But hopefully some of you have realised just what’s at stake, and even if you don’t care about that, how much it might cost the cause of independence. We really hope we can stop talking about it soon, if only so we don’t keep getting banned from Twitter.
A week ago, readers, I had not the slightest interest in bringing Wings Over Scotland back full-time. I had my Twitter account again and was having fun and I was happy with that. It scratched the itch of being able to engage with politics (and people) without the depressing business of wading in it for work.
And then I witnessed the quite extraordinary sight of an elected member of Parliament, in the shape of the SNP’s pico-witted ambulant brain vacuum Karen Adam, publicly gloating about having managed to shut down the voice of someone critical of her party.
At the same time, an extremely minor blogger (the word “rival” would be to over-dignify them) re-opened hostilities in his campaign of self-declared “open warfare” against this site, with a rapid succession of posts (just a few of dozens) forming such a demented scattershot tirade that to patiently debunk all of it would have taken until Christmas.
And I’ll be honest, folks, it all pushed my buttons a wee bit. It really shouldn’t have, but it was properly outrageous and I’m occasionally human, so I thought “Sod it, if I’m going to have to put up with all this crap anyway I might as well make it worthwhile”.
twathater on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “TBQH James I think agent shitehawk is well past convincing, he aligns himself with the other Scotland Hating drones who…” Aug 6, 03:49
twathater on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “If anyone is interested in WHO owns Scotland this is a very interesting article and post from Henry Ferguson of…” Aug 6, 03:32
Young Lochinvar on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: ““Feminisation” of society.. Hit the nail on the head there Christine, well said and bravo risking the bull d1ke backlash.…” Aug 6, 00:43
Young Lochinvar on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “In reply to the Tw8t P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface @ 8.17 The Irony! From the one who “wangs oan” endlessly about r££skies…” Aug 6, 00:15
George Ferguson on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “@Hatey McHateface 11.09pm I can’t make the numbers work. ROI is nought. Policies don’t matter. The Bills that the new…” Aug 6, 00:11
Young Lochinvar on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “In reply to P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface @ 10.30 Ouch! Touched a raw nerve c0ck breath have I? And there was me…” Aug 5, 23:52
James on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “There are none so blind as those who will not see. If, after everything published on this site, and everything…” Aug 5, 23:42
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “Sorry to hear you are not pursuing the Independent MSP plan, George. As for Forbes. I won’t be surprised if…” Aug 5, 23:09
George Ferguson on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “@Hatey McHateface Why do think Kate Forbes has left? The SNP strategy was also to muddy the legal waters. Unfortunately…” Aug 5, 22:54
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “And another two penises, with a side order of cock sucking. Three double taps too. I guess I should be…” Aug 5, 22:30
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: ““The Capture is still in full view” Here’s an article confirming this: https://unherd.com/newsroom/even-reform-uk-is-falling-prey-to-gender-ideology/ And a quote: “In the three and…” Aug 5, 22:13
Young Lochinvar on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “In reply to P3nisbreath McP3nisbreathface @ 9.22 Aaah! “Smoking a pipe”.. So that’s what you call that “ACT” nowadays.. Try…” Aug 5, 21:59
George Ferguson on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “There was a couple of stories today that missed the attention of the discerning Independence supporter. The first being the…” Aug 5, 21:44
agent x on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “@Alf Baird says: I can assure you that nothing you have ever said has convinced me to change my no…” Aug 5, 21:34
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “Don’t be too hard on agent x. He might be living in fear and never-ending abuse. Perhaps he’s been enslaved.…” Aug 5, 21:33
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “Much to agree with in your post, willie. But any vipers reading here will be affronted at being compared to…” Aug 5, 21:26
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “And another two penises. Fit happened tae the re-enactment o’ Otterburn then? Car widnae start? Scotland’s gonna need a new…” Aug 5, 21:22
Alf Baird on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: ““it is the “no” voters like me that need convincing.” In a colonial society, rejecting the liberation of one’s own…” Aug 5, 21:02
Young Lochinvar on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “In reply to P3nisbreath McP3nisbreath @ 8.10 The only todgers mentioned were your nickname; and you wonder why 🙂 .…” Aug 5, 20:55
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “Is that a new boy then (Said)? I don’t recall you mentioning him before. Interesting that the “experience equally agonising”…” Aug 5, 20:30
willie on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “Word is that Kate Forbes is standing down because the party ” a nest of vipers ” Although I think…” Aug 5, 20:26
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: ““Is there anything more boring and irrelevant” Sure. Any number of things.” Aug 5, 20:21
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “You need to spend a lot more time in Middle Earth, Confused. It obviously calms you down, even although Da…” Aug 5, 20:17
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “Christine, thank you for your comment (5 Aug, 6.37 pm). It brought to mind this powerful extract from an interview…” Aug 5, 20:16
Hatey McHateface on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “That’s the great thing about the internet, YL Sah! War correspondents can do it all from behind the closed curtains…” Aug 5, 20:10
George Ferguson on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “@Christine Yes and the said troika would reinstate the 16th Century fig leaf that so damaged the original work of…” Aug 5, 19:14
agent x on The Deafening Echo Of Nothing: “During the leadership debate it was only Forbes that said something sensible about independence. Something along the lines of -…” Aug 5, 19:13