Wings Over Scotland

There are now exactly two weeks remaining of the Scottish Government’s second fake “consultation” into its proposed reforms to gender law.

We say “fake” not out of cynicism or mad paranoia, but because the cabinet minister responsible for the reforms has already made it explicitly, publicly and repeatedly clear that she intends to press ahead with them regardless of the responses, and that the only purpose of the “consultation” is to try to persuade people to agree with them.

Shirley-Anne Somerville reiterated this position just days ago, telling Scotland Tonight that she was “absolutely determined” to enact the bill and only interested in silencing opposition and removing any “medicalisation” of the process of gender transition.

While the Scottish Government has met literally hundreds of times with transactivist groups with regard to the reforms, it has refused to meet women’s groups critical of them, and frequently lied about that refusal.

(It also funds transactivist pressure groups with hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer money to create a “feedback loop” supporting its position. Gender-critical women’s groups receive no such funding, largely because the conditions attached to Scottish Government funding specifically and deliberately exclude them.)

The consultation document and the draft bill leave enormous logical and legislative gaps which are likely to cause untold chaos if the reforms are implemented. The Scottish Government has apparently learned nothing from the shambolic fiascos around the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act and Named Person legislation, both of which have collapsed despite widespread public support – something the proposed gender reforms emphatically do NOT enjoy.

We’re obliged for the sake of sanity to assume that at some point the First Minister, the Cabinet Secretary or both will have to undertake at least one proper interview on the subject of these extremely serious and potentially catastrophic proposals.

For the consideration of whoever may conduct these interviews, we submit below some questions which a very considerable number of people in Scotland – primarily but by no means exclusively women, and encompassing a majority of every political and social demographic – urgently want answered.

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Less than 10 months ago:

Record scratch, jump cut to the present day:

Let’s just hear that again.

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We couldn’t help but raise a quizzical eyebrow at this assertion from SNP MP Pete Wishart in today’s Sunday National.

It was said in the specific context of securing a second indyref in 2020, and since such a referendum has NOT in fact been secured – and looks extremely unlikely to be – we wondered which other definition of “success” might be being used to justify the claim.

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Yesterday we posted an article noting that hardline trans-rights extremists, among whose number we must regretfully count the Scottish Government, were engaged in a determined and alarmingly successful attempt to abolish the scientific basis for reality.

We did not expect such a striking illustration of that assertion to arrive this soon.

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It really is quite the remarkable feat of timing that concerted mass reporting by SNP activists managed to get the Wings Twitter account (and several others) closed down this week of all weeks, isn’t it?

They’re also trying to get my personal account banned, and reporting scores of others, in an open attempt to purge any sort of dissenting opinions from public dialogue at exactly the same time as opening a “consultation” whose outcome has already been predetermined, and which in another remarkable coincidence is due to close just a few days into the four weeks scheduled for the Alex Salmond trial.

What were the odds, eh readers?

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Last night the SNP ditched its second office-bearing member in a week for supposed “anti-Semitism”. Both were thrown under the bus days before a general election for comments deemed to have compared the actions of the government of Israel to those of the Nazis during WW2, which is contrary to the definition of the term used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

The specific line that both were deemed to have infringed was “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” – although interestingly the SNP has never publicly confirmed that it’s actually signed up to the definition, and the super-woke Greens haven’t adopted it either.

The suspensions of Neale Hanvey and Denise Findlay were triggered by the actions of supporters of two SNP politicians who have recently been very vocal about supposed “cybernat abuse” – MEP Alyn Smith and MP Stewart McDonald, both pictured below.

And some alert readers had questions.

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Particularly alert readers may recall this excellent documentary from 2017, exposing how Labour’s PFI scandal has cost the Scottish taxpayer countless billions of pounds and crippled local government for decades with its extortionate financial legacy, as illustrated by the case of North Ayrshire.

Well, now there’s another one of it.

The title is self-explanatory, and it’s worth half an hour of your time.

This is a tweet today from Allan Sutherland, a prominent No activist (he’s currently co-ordinating an attempt to unseat Ian Blackford in Ross, Skye and Lochaber via Unionist tactical voting) and regular fixture of the letters pages of all Scottish newspapers.

The tweet literally incites – indeed, implores – not one but two very serious criminal offences. (His Twitter account also includes such satirical gems as tweeting a video of the First Minister’s speech on Saturday with the voice of Adolf Hitler dubbed over it.)

The tweet comes days after a Scottish Labour candidate tweeted a meme depicting someone spraying bleach on SNP MP Joanna Cherry with the caption “BANG! and the terf is gone”, despite said candidate being supported by the Jo Cox Foundation – a charity set up after the Labour MP of that name was murdered with a gun.

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Alert readers will recall that among the many tirades of abuse this site has recently been subjected to for suggesting the idea of a 2021 Holyrood list party to compete for seats currently won by Unionists, one of the main themes was “We already have a reliable pro-indy alternative to the SNP in the form of the Scottish Greens”.

Now, that argument misses the point by the hugest distance imaginable, but let’s not get into it here, because something more important is happening much sooner.

As we approach a 2019 Westminster general election in which the number of pro-indy MPs returned could be absolutely crucial, we were alerted to the number of candidates the Scottish Greens are intending to stand this coming December.

So it’s perhaps worth considering the possible consequences.

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“Flounders” might have been a more appropriate animal.

It’s painfully entertaining viewing, but Gordon Brewer’s persistence pays off right at the end as we finally discover that Scottish Labour’s answer is “No – even if a clear majority of Scottish people vote for parties explicitly calling for a second independence referendum, and return a majority of pro-indy MSPs to Parliament, we will not consider that sufficient support.”

Which would mean there was no democratic route left open to Scotland to achieve independence. So what is it that he suggests we do?

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These are the Democratic Socialists of America, a fringe-left grouping in the USA with around 60,000 members (or roughly 10 times as many as the Scottish Greens, though per capita closer to the SSP or RISE), at their conference a couple of days ago.

It’s our most fervent wish that one day the left will grasp the fact that this isn’t how you win a war.

It’s also our most abiding fear that this – with its stern admonitions against clapping, or banner-waving, or speaking to anyone who might disagree with you, or taking “fun shortcuts” or wearing “aggressive scents”, in case any of those things cause trauma to the sensitive – might as well be the SNP conference of 2022.

Let’s not blow independence in this Parliament, eh folks?

We’re pretty sure we can’t be alone in being a little perturbed by this paragraph from a story in today’s Times.

It’s public knowledge that Davidson worked for BBC Scotland before becoming a Tory MSP, but we don’t think it’s ever been revealed that she was also working as a lackey, chaffeur and seamstress for a politician.

(Presumably in her spare time, but honestly who knows?)

BBC staff – especially those working in news departments – are supposed to be impeccably politically impartial, including outside of work hours, for extremely obvious reasons. We can’t help but wonder whether there are any current BBC Scotland news broadcasters running around the country fiddling with the flies of Conservative MPs while they’re on party-political business.

Is Glenn Campbell making tea for Ross Thomson? Does Isabel Fraser polish Alister Jack’s shoes on speaking engagements? Does Andrew Kerr have to keep Bill Grant’s sash and apron nicely ironed? Is it Gordon Brewer’s job to brush Kirstene Hair’s hair or remind her to breathe in and out?

Unfortunately, as it’s the BBC there’s very little point in asking, so we’ll never know.