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.
There is growing domestic and international attention on my plan to use the ballot box to decide whether Scotland becomes an independent country.
I have the only plan that has historic precedent, can be delivered legally by Scotland alone, moves us beyond the referendum stalemate, and today I can confirm that this plan is supported by 93% of SNP voters and 52% of Scottish voters.
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.
Southernbystander on Yelling at the tide: “Exactly. Why do people think using lies to justify an argument will work? We have all seen the videos and…” Jan 25, 21:37
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““Were they not still Scots?” Certainly… as Sturgeon is a Scot, and Swinney is a Scot, and Tony Blair is…” Jan 25, 21:37
DaveL on Yelling at the tide: “Caring Hatey rides again. If anybody had posted about it the chances are you would’ve laughed at them and shit…” Jan 25, 21:00
Marie on Yelling at the tide: “Looking forward to the mid-terms Mr Brownshirt? You’ll be needing the tissues doll.” Jan 25, 20:50
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “‘When a Language Won’t Awaken: The Hard Truths of Linguistic Revitalization’ Thanks TURABDIN for the link to this essentially sound,…” Jan 25, 20:25
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Thanks, Northcode for your answers upthread. Yes, Fergusson and Burns wanted to be more widely read and both had a…” Jan 25, 20:08
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “As we all weep bitter, outraged and angry tears on the worlds most-read Scottish Independence site for the man cut…” Jan 25, 20:04
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “I’m at hame the nicht. But in ma younger days, oan Burns Nicht, we wud always get a few shots…” Jan 25, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Aye, Northy, I hae absaelootly nae doot ye’re a much better poet than Burns ivver was. The langer ye go…” Jan 25, 19:45
sam on Yelling at the tide: “…so I could put a few shots in him.” Jan 25, 19:35
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Sure, Alf, it’s racism that I don’t want to lose my livelihood because I’m not fluent in one of Scotland’s…” Jan 25, 19:29
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Here’s a question, x. Is it true that with widely available apps, it’s possible to make all protagonists involved in…” Jan 25, 18:45
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “Here, aw this tak o the braw Scots leid haes pit mi in mind tae write doun anither o ma…” Jan 25, 18:45
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Bang! Whoops! My bad for startling you. I honestly didn’t think you’d have a wee accident like that. Have some…” Jan 25, 18:39
agentx on Yelling at the tide: ““Hello love welcome home – how was your day today?” “Just normal darling. My 3 colleagues were holding a guy…” Jan 25, 18:38
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “All to do with colonialism, sam. You’re long overdue to spend a few hours of quality time with Fanny and…” Jan 25, 18:36
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “C’moan, noo, it’s a foregone conclusion. Scotland will win bigly and return home, dripping with gold.” Jan 25, 18:32
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “The answer to your first two questions is: “MONEY!” (The mercenary pricks). There was obviously a bigger market for stuff…” Jan 25, 18:32
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Anent this post Northcode. Some questions. Why did the poets (Roberts) Fergusson and Burns begin to write in both English…” Jan 25, 18:10
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““However, i do agree the ethnolinguistic archeology stage is over… ” Thank fuck… I was a bit concerned that you…” Jan 25, 17:26
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “….their true language….what a can of worms you open there, more than a can of worms a veritable chasm. However,…” Jan 25, 17:02
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “The Scots language is not, by any reckoning, a dead language – nearly half of Scots living in Scotland still…” Jan 25, 16:28
Marie on Yelling at the tide: “James @1.10pm. Indeed James. McHatee has “form” when it comes to celebrating extra judicial killings.” Jan 25, 16:25
agentx on Yelling at the tide: “Not for me I have done it many times. (Maybe add a few spaces after your paste)” Jan 25, 16:02
Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: ““the few who think like you?” As we know, “colonialism is based on psychology” (Memmi). At least half of Scots…” Jan 25, 15:44
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “AI is neutral, it is sophisticated technology, but like the simple pencil it may be used to produce the sublime…” Jan 25, 14:30
Sven on Yelling at the tide: “Sorry “James”, please bear with an old duffer, I’m still not clear on if you feel being curious enough to…” Jan 25, 14:25
Aidan on Yelling at the tide: “@Alf – do you not feel that you are perpetuating the subjugation of Scotland by continuing to converse in the…” Jan 25, 14:23
