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.
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.
Scotspine on This Other Earth: “So, its clear. COPFS is covering Swinney’s SNPs back.” Aug 26, 22:03
James Che on This Other Earth: “And Scots law was to remain the same, some treaty. Who would have thought it. A hoax, from start to…” Aug 26, 22:00
James Che on This Other Earth: “Indeed Scotland has no crown to have a Scottish Crown office in Scotland as under the English parliament acts it…” Aug 26, 21:48
Angus on This Other Earth: “Can you start the threatened action now?” Aug 26, 21:46
Skip_NC on This Other Earth: “If they’d said that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute any individual for embezzlement of the ring-fenced funds, it would…” Aug 26, 21:26
Willie on This Other Earth: “Lets be quite clear the Police are corrupt. Events with regard to how they prosecute some but utterly disregards others…” Aug 26, 21:12
gm on This Other Earth: “David Davies has had our respect for years.” Aug 26, 20:31
Mark Beggan on This Other Earth: “The elites fear of fears is appearing stupid in front of the plebs.” Aug 26, 20:05
Lollysmum on This Other Earth: “Unbelievable just unbelievable!” Aug 26, 19:47
Andy Wiltshire on This Other Earth: “That doesn’t surprise me, but maybe the IC could make this new (non)development publicly known.” Aug 26, 18:55
Campbell Clansman on This Other Earth: “They’ll NEVER admit to their own “mistake.” And they’ll never release the evidence that would show they didn’t prosecute due…” Aug 26, 18:46
Ian Smith on This Other Earth: “Can you ask police to investigate misconduct in public office by the Crown Office? The fact there is insufficient evidence…” Aug 26, 18:46
Hatey McHateface on This Other Earth: “Guardian reporting “Channel 5 drama to examine how Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband stole SNP funds”: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/26/channel-5-drama-nicola-sturgeon-peter-murrell-snp Strikes me it would…” Aug 26, 18:36
Iain mhor on This Other Earth: “They keep admitting, in writing, that they have evidence a crime was committed, the crime of embezzlement. This is beyond…” Aug 26, 18:32
Wally Jumblatt on This Other Earth: ““there was insufficient evidence of any other criminality in relation to the investigation into allegations of mismanagement or misuse of…” Aug 26, 18:18
Dave on This Other Earth: “Off topic, but I took great satisfaction from seeing a copy of Sturgeon’s ‘Frankly’ relegated from ‘half-price’ to ‘clearance’ in…” Aug 26, 18:09
Robert on This Other Earth: “maybe I’m missing something: but if the Crown Office opinion is that the money was spent (rather than ring-fenced) due…” Aug 26, 18:08
Confounder on This Other Earth: “Stupefyingly corrupt, stupefyingly incompetent, or both.” Aug 26, 18:02
twathater on This Other Earth: “The condescension ingrained in that letter is palpable , these jobsworths are so up themselves that they believe they are…” Aug 26, 18:02
Chas on You’ll Have Had Your Supper: “You forgot about Che or Cheyne who produces endless amounts of drivel, all saying the same thing.” Aug 26, 18:01
robertkknight on This Other Earth: “Chequebook and pen poised, so to speak.” Aug 26, 17:56
Gille Brighde on This Other Earth: “The Crown Office is well aware that politicians lie all the time. It is therefore terrified that prosecuting Swinney and…” Aug 26, 17:49
Chris B on This Other Earth: “Right. Here’s a thought at the mention of good yins when talking about MPs and MSPs. I’ll declare an interest.…” Aug 26, 17:30
agentx on This Other Earth: ““Surely there must be several MSPs and MPs who would be willing to pursue this matter in their parliaments.” —————————————…” Aug 26, 17:30
Andy McColl on This Other Earth: “Jeezo. Will the last person tae leave Scotland please switch off the lights.” Aug 26, 17:23
Mark Beggan on This Other Earth: “Who sent the email? Was it out sourced to lame Liberal Excuses Ltd.” Aug 26, 17:17
Young Lochinvar on This Other Earth: “Apologies if I missed something Rev, a KCs letter is certainly one thing but the detail included in your lawyers…” Aug 26, 16:58
Rev. Stuart Campbell on This Other Earth: “The Crown Office is exempt from having to answer to the Information Commissioner.” Aug 26, 16:57