Wings Over Scotland

The SNP really really don’t want to have another independence referendum, but if somebody somehow FORCES them into one, they DEFINITELY don’t want to have it in circumstances where they’d be starting the campaign with a 16-point lead.

(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.

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These are strange days, readers.

It’s getting hard to tell who’s on which side.

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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.

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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.

In politics, readers, evil and stupidity aren’t the same thing.

But nor are they exclusive.

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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.

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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.

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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.

(At one point he even boasted that he had a brilliant secret plan that he wasn’t going to tell anyone about, making us almost nostalgic for when Sturgeon used to say the same thing and some people actually believed her.)

One bit of the speech did catch our attention, though.

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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.

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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?

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Oh, it’s a long, long while.

They have little to offer, but the songs they sing.

You might think you’ve heard this tired old song before.

But wait! This one’s streamlined! Come back!

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