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.
But until this morning we’d regarded Kate Forbes as a decent consolation prize – no plan for indy, but at least someone who’d lead to the withdrawal of the toxic Scottish Greens from government and probably a mass exodus of the SNP’s Twitler Youth, leaving the party in a better place to rebuild for the future.
And after her disappointing chickening-out from the vote on the Gender Recognition Reform bill, we’d been impressed at the fortitude she’d shown by carrying on in the contest after the (justifiable) furore around her views on abortion and equal marriage, and her combative showing in Tuesday night’s STV debate.
Erin Lux, the co-convener of the extremist SNP affiliate Out For Independence, is the ultra-woke Canadian activist who tried to have Forbes kicked out of the election for “transphobia” almost as soon as she’d declared her candidacy.
OFI, whose membership is measured in dozens, has a disproportionate influence on policy but a microscopic percentage of votes in the election. The chances of any of its members ever voting for Kate Forbes under any circumstances are less than nil. She could have waded into the crowd and decapitated Lux with a chainsaw for all the difference it would have made to the number of votes she’s going to get from OFI.
But Forbes still folded like a deckchair in a hurricane.
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.
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.
Last month this site ran an article entitled “All The Nice Greens Love A Rapist”, and two days ago the Scottish version of the party officially confirmed it.
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.
Last month Wings broke a story about a “survey” being conducted by dozens of primary schools in the Aberdeen area in which children as young as nine were being asked about their sexual orientation and “gender identity”.
Andy Ellis on A different school: “The Danes tried to suppress the Faroese language for centuries. Given current circumstances I reckon most Scots would take a…” Jun 23, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on A different school: ““world gone mad” Ah ken fit ye mean. I really struggle when Cooper, a politician I have detested since the…” Jun 23, 19:48
Xaracen on A different school: “It’s a constitution, Aidan, not a system of modern democracy, and it has sod all to do with running an…” Jun 23, 19:43
Sven on A different school: “James @ 19.16. Indeed they did not, James, and I share what I’m guessing is your entirely justified and righteous…” Jun 23, 19:40
Hatey McHateface on A different school: “This is powerful stuff, NC. Who knew that the Scots for “internalised oppression” is “internalised oppression”? Or that the Scots…” Jun 23, 19:30
James on A different school: “But Sven….did the Faroese parents and/or teachers ever belt their weans for speaking in their ain language though?” Jun 23, 19:16
Aidan on A different school: “@Twatselfhater – Can you find me a single example of a recent case where the outcome was determined based on…” Jun 23, 19:15
Hatey McHateface on A different school: “@ Lorn says: 23 June, 2025 at 4:27 pm “So you anticipate a breakdown of civilization as occurred in the…” Jun 23, 19:13
Sven on A different school: “Kanska skuldi eg stríöst fyri á mínum forfedramáli, føroyskum. No, it may be this Scots ancestral tongue,however I do believe…” Jun 23, 18:49
wullie on A different school: “S. N P Scotland Not Prospering” Jun 23, 18:45
Sven on A different school: “My online friend, Northy. Thank goodness then for such as I, who happily post using my very own heritage tongue,…” Jun 23, 18:10
Rev. Stuart Campbell on A different school: “It’s an idea proposed by Wings in 2020. https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-snp-manifesto-2021/ (Although it makes more sense to use the constituency vote.)” Jun 23, 18:09
twathater on A different school: “So ayden “The obsession with trying to dig up ancient documents and relitigate 1707 has got to be in the…” Jun 23, 18:09
faolie on A different school: “The manifesto for independence needs a pretty decent level of public support however. Sign the petition to tell the pro-independence…” Jun 23, 18:00
MaryB on A different school: “Lorn @ 4.27pm Slovakia is exactly as you say. The Slovaks had no say in becoming independent. It was forced…” Jun 23, 17:34
100%Yes on A different school: “George Galloway has made a surprise call for a Scottish independence referendum. Question why? Cause he knows the SNP isn’t…” Jun 23, 17:32
Alf Baird on A different school: “” Internalized oppression” or ‘Appropriated Racial Oppression’ is an important feature within colonized and hence oppressed societies. To a large…” Jun 23, 17:20
David Holden on A different school: “Please do not feed the troll collective whatever he\she\it is called this week. Thank you. Message ends.” Jun 23, 17:12
Daisy Walker (no more) on A different school: “Daisy Dog passed last week folks, (for those who knew her) 17 years young. She didn’t suffer. Re the above,…” Jun 23, 16:48
Doug on A different school: “Swinney and the SNP hierarchy continue to give every impression that they just wish this pesky independence thing would go…” Jun 23, 16:46
Northcode on A different school: “A’ve been readin aw aboot different kinds o’ oppressioun. An a hiv juist feenisht readin’ aboot thon internalised oppression. Noo,…” Jun 23, 16:34
Moon on A different school: “The next holyrood parliament needs parties like reform. This means the parliament will be distributed by disagreements regularly. Voting SNP…” Jun 23, 16:28
Lorn on A different school: “So you anticipate a breakdown of civilization as occurred in the Balkans or Eastern Europe? Why? A Bulgarian working in…” Jun 23, 16:27
ScottieDog on A different school: “Mr Galloway – a rank outsider, or is he?” Jun 23, 16:14
Hatey McHateface on A different school: “I’m guessing that internalised oppression and marginalised groups might be of interest to individuals who have yet to succumb to…” Jun 23, 16:06
Aidan on A different school: “Whether the ToU was lawfully executed or whether England simply invaded is a very interesting historical subject, for a historian.…” Jun 23, 16:03
Northcode on A different school: “What is internalised oppression? “Internalized oppression is when the oppression that permeates the environment is able to seep into oppressed…” Jun 23, 15:49
factchecker on A different school: “Correct; they are still extant. Many people posting on this blog insist that the ToU is invalid because it was…” Jun 23, 15:49
Aidan on A different school: “Read the article above: Tommy Sheridan’s view is that this is what will mobilise the current non-voters. As if “we…” Jun 23, 15:44