(We must conclude from all this, incidentally, that John Swinney LOVES the Tories, because he had no problem accepting an indyref from a right-wing party in 2012.)
If Scotland leaves the UK, who might be the Prime Minister of the remains of it is none of his business, and certainly shouldn’t be a dealbreaker in achieving independence.
If there’s anyone left in the SNP with a shred of integrity (and if there is they must be very deep undercover indeed), Swinney ought to be challenged for the leadership at next month’s conference and replaced with someone – the Lord alone knows who – who’s actually willing to pursue the party’s supposed primary goal, because Swinney has now dismissed every possible route to it out of hand.
Something rather extraordinary happened yesterday, dearest readers. Very briefly, we absolutely genuinely thought someone in a position of some influence in the SNP had taken a meaningful step towards being serious about independence.
We are not being sarcastic. Look: here it is. (Transcript at bottom of article.)
Dave Doogan is the SNP’s leader at Westminster. And let’s be clear: that is EXACTLY what the SNP’s stance ought to be. Its only purpose is supposed to be the securing of Scottish independence, and no peaceful democratic means of achieving that ought to be off the table. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing, like it was a dream.
The SNP was not formed with the purpose of denying England/the UK the government it voted for, it was formed to completely sever the governance of Scotland and England from each other as a matter of permanent principle, regardless of the prevailing political climate at any given point in time.
If England wants Nigel Farage as Prime Minister, that’s England’s business. The point of independence is that Scotland doesn’t have to get him too. No more, no less.
So obviously, the hapless Doogan’s brave and bright new dawn was brutally slapped down within a matter of hours.
If events in Edinburgh today are anything to go by – when a march and rally announced with great fanfare seven months ago, backed by both the “independence” parties in the Scottish Parliament and featuring the First Minister as main speaker, attracted perhaps 1,500 people at the most to Calton Hill on a bright and sunny day – the independence movement faces an imminent final apocalypse.
So here’s how to prepare yourself for when the SNP win a landslide with 35%, Keir Starmer says “So what?” and then a deathly silence descends for another five years.
Even Kelly Given and Iona Fyfe didn’t show up for this one. That’s how bad it is.
According to a new poll, fewer than a third of SNP voters even think independence is in the top three priorities facing Scotland.
It’s only five points ahead of immigration in fourth place, and seven ahead of housing. So it’s hardly surprising that the SNP aren’t bothering themselves about it. Their own support, like the party, is very comfortable with the way things are.
We were going to write something today for the anniversary of Alex Salmond’s tragic death, but then we read Kevin McKenna’s piece in today’s Herald On Sunday and we can’t improve on it, so go and have a read of that before you do anything else.
Alex always believed in looking forward, not back, so we doubt he’d be overly fussed at the pathetic “tribute” paid to him at the SNP conference this morning. What would undoubtedly have exercised him a lot more would have been the wretched current state of the party he loved and built from almost nothing into the dominant force in Scottish politics.
And nothing typifies that wretched state better than the craven and gutless capitulation of a speech given by Tommy Sheppard yesterday, opposing the rebel amendments to John Swinney’s non-strategy on independence.
It said a lot more than he thought it did, but none of it good.
It’s really very hard to overstate what mendacious, duplicitous shite this is.
It did its job, though. As expected, the SNP conference comprehensively voted down the rebel amendments to Swinney’s motion on independence “strategy” and backed his grand plan of winning a majority, begging Keir Starmer for a second referendum – just like Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf had done before him with Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – and then scuttling obediently away with his tail between his legs when Starmer told him to get lost.
A little over two years ago, three SNP MSPs contested the leadership of the party in the wake of the sudden resignation of Nicola Sturgeon. All were full of grand plans and dreams for the future of the party, the nation and the independence movement.
None of the three is leader now, and in nine months’ time none of them will be SNP MSPs. Indeed, it’s overwhelmingly likely that none will be an MSP at all.
And that, readers, is not a sign of a party – or indeed a Parliament – in good health.
It can be very hard to follow the arguments of people trying to convince you to vote for the SNP on the regional list at next year’s election. Here’s one just a month ago:
So that’s clear – indy supporters MUST IGNORE the “siren voices” telling them to vote for smaller indy parties, because they can’t win any seats and therefore to vote for them is to “throw away” your list vote.
And this was them just two weeks ago, strenuously insisting that the small parties were a busted flush and there was no chance of a “non-SNP route to independence”:
So it was a bit confusing to read this yesterday:
Because all of a sudden, it seems that you CAN vote for the smaller indy parties, regardless of whether they win seats or not, because the list vote will actually be a de-facto referendum and the votes will still count. And indeed, apparently you SHOULD do so, because an SNP-only route – the thing which was the only hope a fortnight ago – is now “totally unachievable” and ONLY working in concert with the smaller indy parties can succeed.
Heavens, what huge transformative event did we miss?
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “See, Dave? You can string a few sentences together when you’re prepared to make the effort. Why don’t you build…” Sep 19, 09:17
diabloandco on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Dave L , with you there , never ceases to amaze me how much time they spend on here relentlessly…” Sep 19, 08:17
DaveL on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The yoons on here constantly moan whinge and cry about various btl posters, sometimes demanding they just stop posting their…” Sep 19, 05:10
Mark Beggan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Let’s just say, playing the victim now is not got the payback that one might have thought. Perhaps the victim…” Sep 18, 23:28
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Hopefully you may be able to present evidence for your revised thesis that Scotland is not now a colony? Much…” Sep 18, 20:51
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Yes, Malgrati in his review does not quite get as far as ‘Doun-Hauden’ which would have helped him explain the…” Sep 18, 20:20
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “If you should ever choose to stand for office in Scotland, New Northy, I’ll be paying close attention to your…” Sep 18, 20:04
Northcode on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “When posters invoke antisyzygy, they’re not using it as a literary concept. They’re using it as: – a psychological explanation…” Sep 18, 19:56
Northcode on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Pathologising dissent isn’t just rude — it’s a form of control based on authoritarian logic. It’s the same manoeuvre used…” Sep 18, 19:29
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@TURABDIN As recently as 30 years ago, you could have gotten away with claiming the allegations of primitivism and moral…” Sep 18, 19:07
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “There’s no oppressive reality in my neck of the woods, Alf. Maybe you just need to move house.” Sep 18, 18:57
factchecker on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““why else would certain elements of the oppressed group (the more assimilated etc) reject their own liberation and deny their…” Sep 18, 18:18
TURABDIN on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Maybe a wee oversensitive? Considering the west has been lecturing, and worse, my part of the world for centuries about…” Sep 18, 18:10
Old Bill on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The Duty of Candour is already activated in the Police Scotland Standards of Professional Behaviour and to avoid this, carelessly,…” Sep 18, 16:50
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Informative exploration of MacDiarmid’s use of the term ‘antisyzygy’. (I don’t necessarily endorse Malgrati’s entire pitch.) ‘ANTISYZYGY’: AN ESCAPE ROUTE…” Sep 18, 15:51
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “There’s something stunningly ironic (some would even say offensive, but I’m not easily that way) in a non-Scot lecturing *me*…” Sep 18, 15:47
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “…and this is why the colonizer (and his group acting collectively btl here) ‘hates theory’ (Memmi) – because it unveils…” Sep 18, 15:07
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““being in denial, stubborn pride maybe, regarding Scotland’s current status is a psychological aberration which the thinkers you quote would…” Sep 18, 15:04
Mark Beggan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “But all you get is the C word nicely feathered in a word salad. Maybe you could ask him to…” Sep 18, 14:51
TURABDIN on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@ ALF BAIRD Those who attack you make your case. Scotland did not start out as a unionist colony but…” Sep 18, 14:13
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Naw, Mark. Every time Alf reads one of my posts he starts choking and somebody has to perform the Heimlich…” Sep 18, 13:37
Spartan 117 on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Ah Alf, so it’s somebody else’s fault ye huv tae yaise thon Coloniser’s tung, nae yur ain? An whit “Scots”…” Sep 18, 13:34
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “Book review: ‘SUPERHERO COMICS AND SCOTTISH IDENTITY: The Comics Art Of Frank Quitely’ « The authors are academics, interrogating Scottish…” Sep 18, 13:20
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@Alf – repetitive, excessive, and largely meaningless writing focused relentlessly on the same subject, often to the point of becoming…” Sep 18, 13:16
Aidan on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: ““There are several others regularly contributing BTL who post nothing but hate, single-minded psuedoacademic wibble or just plain unintelligible drunken…” Sep 18, 13:07
Hatey McHateface on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “@ Alf Baird says: 18 September, 2026 at 12:34 pm “The main point here is the need for a colonized…” Sep 18, 13:02
Alf Baird on A Thousand Islands In The Sea: “The main point here is the need for a colonized people to understand the linguistic and cultural impacts of colonialism,…” Sep 18, 12:34
