In fairness, you can’t really accuse them of hiding it any more.
The faint hearts and pension-seekers of the SNP think that their time has come – the moment when the party’s pursuit of independence can be quietly downgraded to a vague long-term aspiration that will ensure their seats on the gravy train for decades.
Starting at noon tomorrow is your very last chance to stop them.
While idly browsing Twitter this morning, we made a startling discovery triggered by the SNP leadership election, and it was this: nobody in Scotland really knows what the nation’s law on abortion is.
It was prompted by these two tweets, both of which appear to be true:
The thing they agree on is that Humza Yousaf has just declared that he wants to change the law around abortion so that women can abort babies in Scotland solely on the grounds that they don’t like which sex they are. And that seems like something that should probably be bigger news.
Humza Yousaf will not be the next First Minister of Scotland. We’re calling it now. His trainwreck of a performance on last night’s leadership election debate on STV dealt a blow to his chances that we can’t see him recovering from, and the SNP establishment is now under such intense scrutiny over the electoral process that the chances of a fix being orchestrated by Peter Murrell are receding fast.
In the debate Yousaf declared that Nicola Sturgeon was the best politician in the UK, that he wasn’t as good as her, and that she’d failed to find a successful strategy for independence and therefore he couldn’t either.
If you’re talking about “transwomen”, you’re almost always talking about people with a fully intact and functional penis. More than 95% of people who identify as trans have NOT undergone any genital surgery, and that’s a fact that’s still not widely understood.
So in our most recent and double-size Panelbase poll we made it explicit that we were referring to people with a full set of man-junk, and the results speak for themselves.
We must admit it’s a shock – we were expecting the SNP President to remain neutral in the leadership election – but it’s hard to reasonably interpret this any other way.
(We’re not aware of Russell giving any media interviews last night so we assume from the timing that these comments were made at the regular meeting of the SNP Westminster Parliamentary group.)
Because both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes couldn’t have been any clearer that their indy strategies centre on getting Westminster to agree to another Section 30 order, and by pointing out that that’s never going to happen (which we all knew anyway), Mike Russell is admitting that a vote for anyone but Ash Regan is a vote to surrender any hope of independence for the foreseeable future.
We don’t often agree with him these days, but on this one he couldn’t be more right. For the sake of the SNP (and the Yes movement) we hope its members heed the sage, albeit coded, advice of their President.
By now many of you will have seen last night’s article on Craig Murray’s site, in which a current SNP branch convener revealed how the party machine is setting fire to all its own rules in a desperate attempt to secure the succession of Humza Yousaf.
Yousaf is the party establishment’s last hope of keeping all of its misdeeds in the last few years under wraps, and realising the magnitude of what’s at stake if he loses to Ash Regan or Kate Forbes, they’re abandoning all pretence of neutrality or integrity and throwing everything they’ve got at getting him elected.
Wings Over Scotland has been monitoring the BBC’s coverage of Scottish politics for over 11 years now, readers, and other than The Nick Robinson Incident we’re honestly struggling to remember seeing anything worse than this.
The Corporation’s “coverage” of Ash Regan’s campaign launch for the SNP leadership election ran for roughly seven minutes. And we suppose we should be grateful that it did at one point feature a brief, incidental cameo appearance from Ash Regan.
It’s remarkable how openly a certain faction of the SNP is now declaring surrender.
And it’s becoming increasingly clear that the events of the next few days and weeks will not just determine the future of the independence movement, but whether in any meaningful, practical sense it continues to exist at all.
A major piece by the Corporation’s Scotland editor James Cook focused on interviews with two of the three contenders – excluding Ash Regan – on the basis that both had launched their official campaigns yesterday while Regan’s isn’t expected to be until later this week.
So this is interesting. Last week we were about to release some results from our latest Panelbase poll when events intervened. Naturally we’d asked a few questions about gender issues, and one of them concerned the Scottish Government’s potential legal challenge to the UK government’s use of a Section 35 order to block the Gender Recognition Reform bill.
There were three options in the question, and as luck would have it the three potential new leaders of the SNP each advocates a different one.
Ian Brotherhood on What Went On: “A stushie has erupted over whether or not fart suppressant being added to cattle feed is harmful to humans. I…” Nov 28, 22:28
crazycat on What Went On: “I think there are two strands of lunacy here. As you say, men cannot be pregnant. But people who swallow…” Nov 28, 22:08
znovak on What Went On: ““Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” It is…” Nov 28, 21:53
Craig P on What Went On: “The Scottish Government needs to take UEFA to court. Scotland clearly won the last Euros.” Nov 28, 21:50
Anthem on What Went On: “Exactly! There seems to be no law against their fraud, deceit and lies. How do we prosecute these people?” Nov 28, 21:40
Robert Matthews on What Went On: “Colonial Bingo – 0 ?” Nov 28, 21:39
Robert Matthews on What Went On: “Colonial Bingo- knock at the door 4.” Nov 28, 21:37
Andy Anderson on What Went On: “Is he not to old to become pregnant!!” Nov 28, 21:31
ben madigan on What Went On: “could I do that? Identify as a surgeon, I mean? I am confident I could scrub up and wear the…” Nov 28, 21:18
Lorna Campbell on What Went On: “The KC involved in fighting the SG’s corner is a woman – the biological kind. She was just doing her…” Nov 28, 21:09
Hatey McHateface on What Went On: “Looks like the 2024 award for the most institutionally gormless governing body in world politics is in the bag. The…” Nov 28, 20:55
Hatey McHateface on What Went On: “What’s the status of our bet, then? £50 too rich for you? This time of year, there’s plenty of temp…” Nov 28, 20:45
Hatey McHateface on What Went On: “Aw, are you missing him already? S’not even 24 hours. 🙂 Story I heard, he’s ordered a certificate of professorship…” Nov 28, 20:40
Robert Louis on What Went On: “Can no politicians see, as clear as day, the madness of this gender stuff? I mean seriously, we have leaders…” Nov 28, 20:38
SteepBrae on What Went On: “O/T (from ALBA): Saturday 30th November 2024, 12.30pm, His Dream Will Never Die, We call on all Scottish Patriots to…” Nov 28, 20:36
Chas on What Went On: “Great stuff. Another link to mince written by an erse. Have you not got anything original or new? Is plagiarism…” Nov 28, 20:33
Alf Baird on What Went On: “Swinney himself would need to become pregnant to prove his case; tho A widna haud ma breith.” Nov 28, 20:29
Nae Need! on What Went On: ““The UK Conservatives largely voted against the GRA 2004, but did little to repeal it when they returned to power.”…” Nov 28, 20:28
Alf Baird on What Went On: “Private school fees have to be paid somehow.” Nov 28, 20:25
Alf Baird on What Went On: “All that ethnic self-hatred is doing you no good, you know. Colonialism isnae really that difficult tae feegure oot: https://salvo.scot/scotlands-colonial-status/” Nov 28, 20:23
Campbell Clansman on What Went On: “Conservative MSPs voted 26-2 AGAINST the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. All the other parties voted overwhelmingly FOR the bill.…” Nov 28, 19:56
gregor on What Went On: “Karma @Illuminarty1111: “Lol , what a fanny”: https://tinyurl.com/mvhhxh95” Nov 28, 19:52
Nae Need! on What Went On: “It astonishes me that people are STILL falling for the ‘jam tomorrow’ carrot dangling of these liars.” Nov 28, 19:50
gregor on What Went On: “@PeteWishart has blocked you: “Also got signed copies for sale in Perth Waterstones.”: https://archive.ph/mYtrx” Nov 28, 19:48
Peter McAvoy on What Went On: “John Swinney scrap this policy.” Nov 28, 19:47
Nae Need! on What Went On: “Haven’t they just. The fuckers. Rips ma knitting big style.” Nov 28, 19:45
Chas on What Went On: “It did not take too long! Answer one question Alfie boy, who forms a government after we have been supposedly…” Nov 28, 19:44
Nae Need! on What Went On: “Exactly. The SC becomes pointless.” Nov 28, 19:43
Nae Need! on What Went On: “Couldn’t agree more.” Nov 28, 19:39
gregor on What Went On: “@PeteWishart has blocked you: “If you are looking for that perfect Christmas gift for the independence curious or those interested…” Nov 28, 19:35
