Dead Weight
Posted on
July 06, 2024 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
-
About
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
-
Recent Posts
- 07-10
- 07-07
- 07-07
- 07-06
- 07-05
- 07-05
- 07-04
- 07-04
- 07-03
- 07-01
- 06-30
- 06-24
- 06-24
- 06-22
- 06-20
- 06-19
- 06-16
- 06-15
- 06-13
- 06-09
Wings Over ScotlandA tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
LOL! Welcome back, Chris.
This one worries me. The sentiment would appear to be that the main thing preventing Scotland from soaring high is the SNP; not the unionist parties; not Westminster; not the MSM but the SNP.
So the rope gets cut and the SNP are jettisoned and that one event is all that Scotland needs to flourish?? Is that what you really meant? If the ballon had said “Independence” then I would agree completely. But maybe I am missing something?
Brilliant Chris, as always.
Zing! Perfection. The god of stray cats protects those who honour him.
One of your very best Chris, and that ‘best’ is already outstanding. Bravo!
Brilliant. That should be a leaflet dropped in every door in Scotland. No words needed.
Spot on Chris. Welcome back.
I wonder if that yellow sack contains the ringfenced £660,000 is gold coins?
I wonder if that yellow sack contains the ringfenced £660,000 in gold coins?
Ach, it’s not all bad news this morning.
Galloway, back on the streets after just what, 4 months?
Murray, never even came close – get a proper job, Craig!
The usual suspects will be in denial that they ever supported them, of course, but the Wings BTL collective memory remains.
Meantime, the MSM is reporting that the long suffering people of P@lestine are renaming their donkeys after the Humous leaders. The people of P@lestine can tell us Scots a thing or two about the worst that can happen when you allow a bunch of nutjobs into positions of absolute power over you. By comparison, we Scots have gotten away lightly from the SNP.
And Starmer has already been on the phone to our friends in the east, promising support as usual. Another lesson for us Scots from there about what true colonialist imperialism looks like. Rendering WM a cuddly wee pussycat by comparison.
I don’t expect the usual suspects to lay off their cheerleading for Pres Poot, but most of us see clearly what it is – the rantings of bitter losers.
Reform shows us the way forwards – not in terms of policies, but in terms of attitude and application – getting behind a charismatic, popular leader, focusing on the message, listening to what people need.
Absolutely no reason why something similar can’t happen here in Scotland, for Indy, if that’s what the majority of Scots really need.
Get back to us when Indy has found its new charismatic and popular leader. Because it ain’t AS. He’s ideally placed to be the unseen, guiding hand, but new blood and a new face is needed out front.
duncanio…
“I wonder if that yellow sack contains the ringfenced £660,000 in gold coins?”
No. It does however contain 13 pieces of silver, an MI5 identity card in the name of someone called Sturgeon, a carefully folded Union Flag and a file market “TOP SECRET” bearing the title “How to Destroy the SNP”.
Sturgeon the Rainbow clad Wrecker, the «Arch-Mole» needs to be OUTED…as far from Scotland as possible.
She has had it easy compared to what might have been her fate in certain countries with a greater visceral sense of integrity.
Similarly, all her followers.
Scotland Expects!
Brilliant ?
Nice. Succinct.
Not entirely off topic, if there are any yessers left in the SNP, some frank words to heed… https://robinmcalpine.org/this-defeat-was-the-snps-own-creation/
Another zinger Chris: encapsulates exactly what the movement needs to do.
The big question however is where do we go from here? Sadly it’s unlikely we can expect the SNP to disappear overnight: the winnets will still cling on for dear life for some time yet and we’ll still have to deal with them, even if they (hopefully?) come to accept that their influence on the movement is much reduced.
As others pointed out yesterday, Alba needs to up its game. If it doesn’t demonstrate in the run up to the Holyrood election in 2026 that it can hoover up the section of independence support which will not vote for or support the SNP under any circumstances it is finished.
It needs to come out fighting and stop making the kind of unforced and frankly pretty stupid political errors it has been making in the run up to this election. Its structures need to be reformed, OMOV brought in, and it needs to try and attract back some of those it has alienated if it’s not to be seen as just a new SNP, or Alex Salmond’s creature.
There’s a small and closing window for this to be done if the party is not to sink in to irrelevance.
Delighted to see Chris back with a zinger of a ‘toon but now fear for the cats of Greece without their benefactor! However, Scotland needs him more, foreign felines.
Hi there, Hatey McHateface:
Nothing corrodes like charisma!
Genius!
As the ( angel ) dust settles around the SNP crash-scene , the * vehicle * lying upturned in a ditch , wheels spinning madly/pointlessly , the nine surviving cretins , puppets n plants crawling from the wreckage , giving praise to the God of Grift , is it to be a case of …..
” right , that’s that distraction over , now let’s spend the next two years being distracted by whatever pitiful efforts are likely to be proffered by Nu SNALBA ” ? .
I for one have no intention of being so distracted .
If the Political Party panjandrums can’t see the reason * newborn * entities like Reform have outperformed the SNP/ALBA/ISP./I4Is in this G.E is because – hod the front page ! – they are addressing the issues that people are ACTUALLY concerned about – not the rarefied esoteric psycho/socio/political brain-cabbage that obsesses the ” Prog ” Clownocracy and is being , more-or-less adopted by all the others – those Parties/Individuals will not prosper until they understand what’s happening .
This is not to advocate the adoption of Farage-style phony ” man of the people ” Personality Politics ” ( though , fck knows , it seems to work ) and crude , broad-stroke , simplistic interpretations/panaceas of/for the truly awful state of U.K Politics and the * country * as a whole – if such a fragmented area can be described as a ” whole ” .
Salmond et al need to stop shiteing-it about MSM reaction/s and begin to articulate a defiant , unapologetic , engaging Nationalism – embrace it as one of the engines of Liberation n forget the jejune , watery * Civic * version ; or , at least , de-emphasise the latter and emphasise the former .
Civic Nationalism is for AFTER Independence . Not BEFORE it .
” More of the same ” will lead to , yip …..more of the same worthless , unproductive ” we lost the game , but what great supporters we had ” failures . Fuck that for a game a sodjers .
If that’s all that’s on offer , count me oot . TKO’d be timidity
Excellent work as ever , C.C .
Beautiful cartoon, Mr Cairns. However, I am of the opinion the lead weight we have to get rid of, or at least bypass, must include ALL political parties currently operating in Scotland. Every single one. Because every single one colluded to deny the people of Scotland the opportunity to vote for independence. Hell mend them all.
This last general election has confirmed that politics will never be the route that will take us to independence. Never. The sooner we start to accept that, the sooner we can unite and take another, route.
Political parties are nothing but pawns being moved around by the establishment to stop independence. And the voters are being taken for fools time and time again. We have been taken for fools since the political fraud Sturgeon took control of the SNP with the purpose of denying us the opportunity to vote for independence and to ensure she forever destroyed the SNP to stop it ever becoming again the political vehicle for independence.
Farage’s new version of UKIP is clearly an establishment product deployed to ensure a crushing majority for Labour, as Starmer had been elected long time ago by the establishment, at both sides of the Atlantic, to be the next PM. The funds, the promotion this failed leader and charlatan gets falls beyond what is reasonable.
I do not believe for even a second that the Royal Mail “problem” with the leaflets in Slippers’ constituency was a random accident either. If you look at the votes cast in that constituency, without reform, the vote between the conservatives and SNP would have come far too close.
To this day, I am not even sure what the purpose of Alba fielding candidates in this election was for. Having Kenny McKaskill running against Eva Comrie came across to me as vindictive, as seeking to dilute the pro independence and protest vote even further and it certainly made a complete mockery of the much trumpeted “united front” by the party in the previous months. It made the party look rather hypocritical, actually. Had only one candidate be in that constituency, and the vote might have surpassed that for the greens. Instead, both candidates lost the deposit and made look the fundamentalist pro-independence vote in that constituency, irrelevant.
As per ISP, the party is promising and the only one, in my personal opinion, with the right idea: If Scotland is to have independence, the first step is to ditch Westminster from day 1. However, in this election, the number of candidates deployed was insufficient to make any difference whatsoever, even in the best case scenario, which would be them winning seats. In other words, it was completely pointless.
So, as it is, independence voters in Scotland were denied, once again, as it has been habit for the last 10 years, the opportunity to vote for Scotland’s independence. This was by design.
If I was already a cynic who thought elections were a charade deployed to justify in the eyes of voters a pre-agreed and pre-arranged result, this election simply served to confirm it and to make me even more of a cynic.
Gosh, I am sick of them all. I cannot even face looking at any of them, never mind listening to the unembellished shite they spout.
My question is: what is the real reason behind the establishment installing a crushing labour majority in Westminster?
Are these bastards planning to finalise the privatisation of the NHS so the trade deal with USA can be closed? Are they taking us to the mother of USA’s self-serving hegemonic wars in the last hurrah to save their ridiculous dollar privilege? Or are they going to force us to worship their beloved rogue state currently engaged in genocide in the middle east?
God help us.
should have sturgeon hanging on to the bottom of the bag, in her campervan….with brexit stickers on the side…
“The SNP used to preside over big majorities, but now seven of its nine seats are among the 10 most marginal in Scotland”, with four in particular on low numbers…
G Leadbitter: 1001 Majority
S Logan: 942 Majority
S Gethins: 859 Majority
C Law: 675 Majority
What happens when intellectual pygmies, chancers, troughers, biology-denying deviants and fifth-columnists are left to run a party? You lose over half a million votes. That’s right folks… over 500,000 votes gone because you didn’t listen, you didn’t care and you thought you knew better.
So there you have it…from 56 seats to just 9 in less than a decade, and 4 of those 9 marginal.
Well done Nicla, well done!
Spot on Mia, our democracy is a sham, an illusion, and if we want to be free we need to rise up as the sovereign Scots we are. Let’s face it, ALBA are going nowhere and seem to fall into the trap of still wanting to work with and adopt similar policies and political attitudes to the utterly failed SNP.
A complete clear out is required and while we organise ourselves at grass roots let’s hope someone who is sincere about Independence fills the void, the vacuum that is Scottish politics. Meanwhile, let’s see what a mess Labour makes in general and specifically here in Scotland.
That STV and BBC give air time to nicola sturgeon and Lizz Lloyd tell you everything.
That they are given a soft ride tells you everything.
Given Murrel appears to have been thrown under the bus I wonder if he will sing like a canary.
In all sincerity, I think there is a bigger problem than the SNP.
It’s also an apolitical point, although I believe there is an asymmetric disadvantage to Scotland which would end if the problem was addressed.
The problem is the extent to which most ordinary people are almost completely disengaged with our politics and government. Their grasp of vital issues is depressingly superficial, and worse, their appetite to learn more is largely non existent. They are, to all intents and purposes, switched off.
People aren’t disgusted by Sturgeon’s betrayal of Scotland because great hordes of people aren’t even aware that it happened.
It’s not an attention span thing, they’ve not forgotten a thing, but an attention ‘depth’ thing. There are just not questioning the things around them.
People don’t vote for ALBA because most of the people are not alert to the need for doing so. What use is an emergency response when nobody is alert to the emergency?
I believe support for Independence hovering around 50% is less politically charged than many think, and may be closely related to a level of awareness rather than a political conviction. You can’t unlearn a thing once you see it for yourself.
Right now, 24 -7, Scotland is being suffocated because the media is awash with pacifying indoctrination and nobody is properly alert to it.
Doesn’t it jarr when you hear some mouthpiece on the TV whining about the SNP being obsessed with Independence? Wait. What? The same SNP which has done the square root of fk all to promote Independence for the last decade? So who is that propaganda specifically aimed at? Think about it. They’re not giving the people news, they’re topping up their medication. Take your medicine Mr Murphy.
Think about the Matrix movie. Sorry to alarm you folks, but “we” few who question what we’re being spoon fed, are the select few who are unplugged from the Matrix. The vast majority of Scotland’s people are not.
This phenomenon, and whether it can be defeated and the greater mass of us unplugged, will have much more bearing on Scotland’s future than the fates of any number of shallow political non-entities.
Scotland needs first it’s Independence message primed and ready to broadcast succinctly and emphatically, but then the Nation needs some kind of defibrilation to awaken peoples’ awareness.
There’s a strange phenomenon, related to smoking of all things. Nicotine is one of the world’s most addictive substances, it’s true, we all know it, but it’s also true it’s one of the easiest addictions to break. After 24-48 hours, the addiction to the drug is broken. There’s no cold turkey tremors or DT’s. Smokers fail to stop smoking because they’re addicted to the habit of smoking, not the nicotine.
I think Unionism works the same way. It has seduced many on a passive, habitual basis, but the addiction has a very weak hold on the subject.
If we want to alter Scotland’s currently depressing trajectory, we need “something” which reaches out to the ordinary people and shakes them out of their stupor. This is the objective we must achieve, but made more difficult because “our” media is the Great anaesthetist in chief, who is absolutely determined to keep Scotland docile, despondant, and subdued.
Do not swallow their narrative. Question everything they say.
I am also profoundly suspicious whenever I hear the SNP “narrative” that there’s no lawful route to Independence. For one thing it’s not true. For two things, illegality cuts both ways yet Westminster does what it likes. And for the third thing, this narrative seeds that same old despondency and pacification. Do you see it yet?
Alf Baird, if you happen to see this could you please read our latest?
We hope you’ll consider commenting – our site uses Disqus, which some find a bit of a faff, so you could comment here, or mail (fao Rab) offtopicscotland@protonmail.com
Thanks.
😉
https://www.offtopicscotland.com/post/all-in-the-mind
Robert Hughes @ 9:52 am
“Civic Nationalism is for AFTER Independence . Not BEFORE it .”
Indeed Robert, this was also my finding from the research for the book ‘Doun-Hauden’. A colonised and hence oppressed people need to focus on their liberation first as ‘the most urgent priority’ – postcolonial theory and extensive imperial history confirms they certainly cannot depend on the se***er / colonialist.
The SNP’s deceitful diversion into ‘Progressive’ bull forms part of a colonial strategy designed to block independence; it needs to be jettisoned from the liberation balloon if Scotland is to ‘rise and be a nation again’, i.e. nae langer haud doun:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/determinants-of-independence-nationalism/
It has been said that with the SNP’s, Westminster cohort of British State parasites reduced to nine, (Inverness, Sky & West Ross-shire has been conceded) they will not be afforded much opportunity to “address the House”.
I predict one exception.
Stephen “CIA” Gethins will almost certainly regain the Foreign Affairs, Spokesperson remit. Gethins held this position when first elected in the 2015 SNP landslide. He retained the post after the crash GE of 2017 despite holding his seat by a margin of two votes!
Gethins’ contributions to Hansard in this period were multitude but the range of topics wasn’t as numerous.
It is said that Cato the Elder in his monomaniacal obsession with the Phoenicians, couldn’t end a speech to the Senate without stating, “Carthago delenda est (“Carthage must be destroyed”) “.
Gethins’ equivalent was “Russia bad!”.
Gethins will have no difficulty “catching the Speaker’s eye”.
His message tailor’s seamlessly with the propaganda of the Anglo-American, Security State, and that’s who Gethins really works for.
To those putting their faith in non-party, non-parliamentary and/or legal routes to indy, all I can say is good luck. I look forward to seeing what progress you make, because thus far, for all the brickbats about Alba’s lack of progress, I’ve seen precisely zero from all these proposed “cunning plans for indy” types to convince me that they’re going to succeed where new entrant parties have (so far failed).
Given that you faith in your chosen solutions is (or should be?) strong, when should we expect to see progress?
I mean, those of us who think progress can and will come through conventional means will be focusing on building up support for Holyrood 2026 elections. That might work, or it might not. There are, as others have already pointed out, 500,000 Scots voters looking for a new political home.
However, since those disillusioned with the current system insist we don’t need to bother with tiresome details like political parties, elections, referendums or demonstrating a clear majority with a vote, presumably you’ll have some timescale in mind and a plan about how and when this novel approach is going to deliver majority support?
You’ll also be able to show how that majority will be mobilised to propel us to the sunny uplands of a new independent Scottish republic recognised by the international community.
Let’s be having it….
@Mia says:6 July, 2024 at 9:58 am
rogue state currently engaged in genocide in the middle east
Twenty-odd comments and she’s already off.
Lessons learned = 0.
It’s nae a genocide, Mia. Sometimes I uncharitably think you’re with the Humous boys – if only it was a real genocide, eh? C’moan kill a million or two. Then your cause might get somewhere.
But naw.
God help us
Why, exactly? It’s 2024 FFS. We put all that aside some time ago.
The Guid Lord helps those who help themselves. Something we Scots used to instinctively know, but seem to have lost along the way.
Or maybe it’s just a Wings BTL thing.
Anyway, some advice going forwards. Under 2 years until the next big test coming up in May 2026 I believe.
Ditch the support losing shit. Change the record.
Up to several million Scots there to be convinced, if you can just come up with stuff that passes the basic reality test. Give it your best shot, and stop shooting yourself in both feet.
If you won’t hear it from me, have a heart-to-heart with a friend.
Stephen Gethins seat is in the new consultancy of Arbroath and Broughty Ferry traditionally the opposition came from the Tories however this one takes in the traditionally Labour voting Dundee East so it is difficult to say whether the Labour showing was Tories voting tactically or voters turning against Independence.
Correction…
From 56/59 to 9/57 in just 7 years.
With 7 of the SNP’s 9 seats within the top 10 most marginal seats in Scotland.
That’s some achievement by Agent Sturgeon and her hired help.
Round of applause please…
The SNP website today claims they have 10 mps, not 9?
Izzie…
“voting tactically or voters turning against Independence.”
Don’t confuse anti-SNP with anti-independence, for they are not the same thing.
24-26 Jun 2024, The Sunday Times poll showed:
47% Yes
47% No
6% Undecided.
The SNP polled 29% of the vote.
Last I heard support for Indy was at 47
Well said Mia.
Ellis
You weren’t here for 2014 so do be quiet. The people voted for an independence referendum. The ppl made Indyref. The ppl also had a cunning plan for devolution & a Scottish parliament too. So do STFU about yer naysaying over shortcuts & cunning plans. You weren’t even fucking here.
Great cartoon Chris.
I’m with Mia. Ditch them all. A convention is the answer & has DELIVERED RESULTS & MOMENTUM before & will do so again without a single politician in sight until it’s time for one.
Very apt Chris, its taken some folk ten years of SNP inactivity on indy to realise this.
“Well done Nicla, well done!”
Yes, robertkknight, well done to her, Swinney, Yousaf, the vow man, the vietnam group, Peter Murray, Michael Russell, Robertson, Smith, Donaldson, Black, Blackman, Blackford, etc, because all of them had a role to play in the deliberate destruction of the party and their consistent refusal to let the people of Scotland exercise their fundamental and legitimate right to self-determination.
It is difficult to look retrospectively now to the trajectory of this political fraud and not reconcile it with her now becoming the darling of the establishment and its propaganda mouthpieces. Same goes for teflon woman Liz Lloyd.
When did real Scottish nationalists become darlings of the British establishment? Only when they ceased to be a threat to the establishment, or rather they were never seen as a threat in the first place.
Because, other than destroying the SNP and ensuring that Scotland went nowhere during the roller-coaster of brexit, what exactly have this woman’s achievements been to justify her becoming so popular with the establishment’s propaganda mouthpieces? I see none.
The destruction of the SNP was no accident. It was not incompetence either. It was by design. The sooner we accept this and stop mourning the loss of the SNP, the sooner we can move forward. The soon we accept it, the sooner we can stop being fooled again with the same strategy.
The SNP was finished on the 14 November 2014. What has maintained the SNP alive in the polls is simply voters’ loyalty and inertia. A loyalty that the Sturgeon’s SNP did not deserve, as she showed no loyalty whatsoever to her own country, never mind pro-independence voters.
Sadly, it takes a while for the voting mass to catch up with what is really going on. GE 2024 was the turning point when that inertia stopped moving the SNP forward, but we should their vote will decrease even further in 2026 and if the political frauds sitting in Westminster on behalf of Scotland and in HOlyrood keep Scotland welded to England for their own benefit, it will go down even further in 2029.
What the political fraud Sturgeon was doing was simply managing that inertia on behalf of the British establishment, because at that point, SNP and the pro-independence vote were welded together. Sturgeon and co kept the charade up to ensure a decoupling between SNP and pro-independence vote did not take place. That is the only way the British establishment could keep credibly deploying the pretend that a defeat of the SNP means independence is not a priority. The worse thing that could happen to the establishment is an increase in the proportion of pro-independence support among the establishment unionist parties’ voting ranks.
I have to be honest. I am not sure how Mr Salmond could not see this political fraud for what she was already in 2014. Because, quite frankly, it does not take very long to realise there is something rather fakeish, vindictive, self-indulgent, over-confident, arrogant and narcissistic about Sturgeon as soon as she opens her mouth and speaks for a few minutes.
Looking retrospectively to her tenure, the repetitive soundbites, the carefully studied voice inflections when mentioning certain words were kinda obvious. Her speeches sounded fresh the first time round, but repeating the same year after year with different wording and not doing anything despite having every opportunity to do so, quickly became stale. This would not have been missed by somebody as astute as Mr Salmond.
I am not sure what the real reason for Mr Salmond to resign in 2014 was. Looking retrospectively, you cannot say by any stretch of imagination that he suffered a defeat in 2014. He managed to bring the pro-independence vote from 23% in January 2013 to over 50% in 2014. I am of the opinion the official 2014 referendum result was rigged and that over 50% remained until 8 May 2015.
Looking retrospectively, his resignation in 2014 was the main lever that ensured Scotland would be forced into a cul de sack and to bypass the best opportunities for independence given at the most turbulent and weaker political points for the UK in 300 years of history.
Mr Salmond’s timely resignation was, in my opinion, also what ensured brexit could happen and what ensured Scotland’s assets could be, yet again, used to keep the bloated England economy afloat.
Looking how quickly the British establishment found neverending sources of cash and managed to recruit enough candidates to deploy political products like UKIP or now Reform in every constituency and manipulate the result in record time, you can hardly believe the resignation of Mr Salmond in 2014 was just a coincidence or simply the product of bad judgement.
I do indeed wonder until what point we are all being taken for fools by the political class and the entity with the biggest vested interest in the ToU to continue which seems to be pulling the strings of the entire political class.
Can we continue talking about democracy when we are being specifically denied the chance to vote for what we most want to vote for?
I think not.
On the subject of ‘dead-weight’, which is critically important for ships and ‘air’ ships:
The SNP’s ultra-heavy displacement ferries (hence very poorly designed) consist of so-many costly compromises and unnecessary add-ons and luxuries that they probably won’t make the required ‘deadweight’, or at best they will have a limited payload relative to their high ‘lightship’ weight. Such vessels are also rendered unstable hence their need for heavy seawater ballast tanks and costly stabilisers, which further adds to their weight, and cost.
The cartoon is deid richt – the SNP are just like their worthless ferries, badly designed and an added and unnecessary weight aroond the necks of the Scottish people, haudin us aw doun.
https://oisf.org/fest-event/a-new-day-for-the-ferryman/
@Geri
More spittle fuelled invective from the hard of thinking. Clear yer screen and calm doon.
Why not try to actually address the points Geri? What difference does it make whether I was here in 2014 or not? The points and issues remain irrespective of my geographical location a decade ago and your pathetic attempts to divert attention from your intellectual nudity.
The referendum was delivered by conventional means, via the support of political parties. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise. The same goes for the Scottish parliament. There may have been a civic movement behind it, but it was actually delivered because the Scottish political parties made it happen.
You and yer delusional mates now insist it’s going to happen in a vacuum and anyway all you moonhowlers insist civic nationalism’s deid anyway.
So still no answers on how “cunning plans for indy” actually work then?
Alert readers are just going to think this post colonial Emperor has no clothes Geri. Stun us wi’ another!
Geri @ 11:14am
I think Andy Ellis’ point was that Alba was using a constructed path and timetable towards its goals while Salvo (for example) was having to create these.
I agree with Ellis about Alba, however, I believe that there’s nothing wrong with having more irons in the fire.
I understand people have their favourite way forward for Scotland but if there’s to be any progress, we’ll need to coalesce around just one.
It’s obviously a lot harder than it sounds and a bit like herding cats.
@Mia says:6 July, 2024 at 11:19 am
brexit
Oh dear. Another trip down memory lane.
Look, Mia, the UK joined, so the UK had to leave. If we had a time machine, we could go back to the accession talks, and ensure the EU (the Common Market as it then was) signed separate treaties with England and Scotland (and the rest), so that if one of the Home Nations left, the other or others could remain.
But that’s not what happened at the time. Neither do we have that time machine.
So change the record FFS.
Also, maybe settle a wee bet.
Either you have a portfolio of these posts pre-created, or you’re an AI. Which is it?
Regarding Alex Salmond.
He’s already proved to be a thorn in the side of the Establishment, they’ve tried everything to remove him from politics.
This should tell us that we should be working to get him back to a position where he can give them a bloody nose.
Hoping for the emergence of a Scottish Messiah will be an uncomfortably long wait.
Following a lot of geopolitical events it’s now crystal clear how the establishment works. It contains it’s threat by persistent delay.
Delay in the Palestinian State.
Delay in the Minsk agreements.
Delay in Scottish independence.
Delay in Turkey joining the EU.
On & on the list goes and it’s all done to buy them time.
It’s delay, delay, delay to give them time to either regroup, re-arm, keep enough carrots dangling long enough to keep it contained or until support fizzles out & dies through inaction.
This is exactly what Sturgeon played at too. The UK can’t afford to lose it’s (imaginary) world status & it’s seat on the security council as Americas poodle & Sturgeons constant delays & faffing about was textbook with her endless harpies making excuse after excuse of why there was nothing happening with her mandates.
The establishment have used Reform to bring in a labour government because they’ll carry the can for the shit that’s about to be unleashed on Britain.
Mia,
Re- Taking a different route.
Something I have been advocating for since 2014, and have been continually surprised that Alex Salmond, Joanna Cherry, Kenny MacCaskell, eva Comrie and the list goes on and on.
The feeling and notion that all these people and parties over many years have and playing a game of Blind mans buff over Scots.
We are the ones blind-folded in this game,
There are many more serious routes to Scottish independence, but using the Westminster voting system is not and never was one of them,
Prior to this election The suggestion had been made “not to vote at all” and that would have sent a resounding message that Scotland never voted for Labour, Snp, Tories, Greens or Lib dems,
Referring to comments at the time on How the results of this election and what they would be with Labour in Government by a majority before Scotland had even woke up on election day and meandered down to the polling station to place a invisible X was all across MSM.
I personally did not vote or contribute for many reasons, but the decision of who was getting in in Scotland before we had even voted was one of those reasons amongst many,
Voting to sustain the usage of the devolved parliament through the Westminster legislation was another, and the reform party did prove that it is the people that can make the difference if nothing else,
For the love of god how many Scots are so blinded by the devolved government pretending to be an institute of Scotland under the Scottish Constitution staggers believe.
Even Rev Stu gets blinded by that false-hood, and he is so astute usually.
It is a colonial Westminster secondary sub-division parliament for the management of Scotland and the Scottish people, and totally breaches the Treaty of union article 111 of being ” One” parliament of Great- Britain.
Setting aside that particular breach of the treaty of Union for now, and focusing on what the purpose of the Westminsters sent to Scotland devolved government does,
It Crashes into another article of the treaty regards “Scots Law”
That all other laws Remain in Scotland including Private Rights, which no alteration be made except evident Utility for the Scots.
But here is a Westminster legislated sub-division parliament sent to Scotland intercepting those “true Scots laws” passing a “Hate Crime Bill” and diversity and inclusion bills .
Not for the evident utility of “Scottish private rights” and Scots Laws never included gender disphoria, or a hate Crime Bill,
If no alteration of Scots laws and private rights are still valid along with the treaty, and wrote down as such as part of the treaty of union Articles, then Westminster cannot introduce them pretending to own Scottish private rights through the sub parliament into Scotland,
If a different route to Sottish independence is to prevail, then first we must shake of the stupifying idea that the Westminster sub- parliament in cannot pass or make alterations to “Scots laws” while it is not legally a reconvened Scottish parliament under the Constitution of Scotland,
John Main,
It’s been quite a while now and I’m still waiting for your definition of genocide.
How you can determine something isn’t a genocide when you don’t know what the definition takes some chutzpah.
Of course, I’m sure it’s all the fault of those damn Russkies.
Mia,
How binding is the 2014 referendum, or any referendum for that matter, as there is not a article of the treaty of union that points to this as being a specified method that mentions Scotland must have permission from the Great – Britain government or the government of Great- Britain and Northern Ireland, or the UK parliament,
After all Scotland never made a treaty of union with either of those parliaments, they did not exist.
Why are my posts not going through, is any one else having this problem?
https://www.denisefindlay.org/post/there-is-no-decent-place-to-stand-in-a-massacre
This is an excellent article by Denise Findlay.
I know how Alba’s leadership treated Denise Findlay and other dedicated members and campaigners for Scottish independence. But I’ll leave that to Denise to tell her story.
I was an Alba founding member and was recently expelled from Alba, accused of indecency and damaging the party in the eyes of the public. I spoke the truth about the dodgy conduct, bullying and undermining of Scots sovereignty and so they wanted me out by hook or by CROOK.
I was prevented from attending my “trial” to give my defence so was expelled in my absence. My appeal received no response.
The indecency allegation was based on that I used a jobby and pirate flag emoji on Twitter to describe the mince excuses for the cover-up by Alex Salmond regarding vote rigging concerns over NEC places.
Alba’s abusive behaviour against members under the leadership of Alex Salmond, Chris McEleny and Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh is so near identical to the SNP’s, that if I described the conduct without naming names, you would have thought I was describing the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell.
This article explains the NEC voting scandal and abuses of power by Salmond:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/02/19/requiem-for-a-dream/
I also pointed out, as I do here, that Alex Salmond is supposed to be leading a republican and “Scots are sovereign” party but swore fealty to England’s King Charles III and upholds English Crown in WM sovereignty.
This article by Sara Salyers helps explain how Alex Salmond’s Alba position is damaging to Scottish sovereignty.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2023/07/30/going-public-and-why-sara-salyers-resigns/
My view is Scotland’s people will never win independence by following the over-inflated egos of British Establishment career politicians like Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond.
In my eyes, Salmond has gone from hero to zero, which is nearly the same as Alba’s voting figures under Salmond’s domination of the Alba Party.
“Twenty-odd comments and she’s already off”
My first comment of the day and there you are already. Like a boomerang bad smell. Are you a moss+ad apparatchik? Or just another envoy for the “Friends of the rogue state currently engaged in genocide” multi-political group?
You appear to be far more concerned about USA’s and that rogue state currently engaged in genocide than in Scotland.
If that is the case, what exactly are you doing in a pro-Scotland’s independence political thread? Are you monitoring us to report to somebody else so they can then deploy parties like Reform or dish out faux “anti semi t ism” or faux sex-related accusations to discredit someone and manipulate public opinion?
“Ditch the support losing shit”
No. What exactly made you even think you could order me around?
“Why, exactly?”
Because I do not want to see the self-serving colonial warmonger and pro-genocide wankers in Westminster taking my children to a fucking war with RSS, China and the African countries, for the sake of USA preserving its undeserved and unjustifiable privilege and for the sake of preserving the rogue state in the middle east currently engaged in violent and disgusting genocide.
We learnt on Thursday that Scotland cannot change anything in the UK through the ballot box. So hell yes. God help us because nobody else will.
“Give it your best shot, and stop shooting yourself in both feet”
Nothing signifies that I am in the correct path better than having a pro-genocide, pro-war colonial establishment apparatchik like you going to so much pains to respond to my comment. Thank you for the vote of confidence.
Rab Clark @ 10:21 am
Just a few remarks:
Anderson rightly accepts that nations are a cultural creation, which is the same for postcolonial theorists. Language forms a key part of culture and has a decisive role. Revolutions and decolonizations are defined in national terms and peoples in self-determination conflict are generally linguistically and culturally divided.
Indigenous languages and national cultures evolve naturally; imperial entities do not. Empires are artificially created through force and imposition of colonial procedures. This includes cultural imperialism and language subordination (native language literature and history is not taught/distorted) of the oppressed groups.
Nations are ’emotional and spiritual’. Colonised nations suffer from cultural assimilation and here the people become ‘dislocated’ from their culture, their culture is ‘obliterated’ and they and their culture are in the process of perishing so long as colonialism continues.
The aim of colonialism via cultural imperialism methods is to replace a peoples national identity with something else; to make Estonians feel Russian, or Catalans Spanish, or Scots as Brits. Here the colonized ends up ‘mimicking’ the colonizer’s language (because only his language opens the doors of opportunity) and discards their own ‘inferior’ native mother tongue (i.e. cultural assimilation), casting aside and denigrating his ain culture. However the imperial nation ‘identity’ remains a ‘cultural illusion’, given the oppressed native ‘a false persona’.
As Fanon noted, the desire for independence of a colonized people is dependent on their ‘national consciousness’, but this is not nationalism.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/determinants-of-independence-nationalism/
Beautiful art. I like the composition but I’m wondering if it might have been more interesting to put a bunch of shadowy figures in the basket, making their getaway with a pile of cash…
I see people are exchanging ideas on the best way forward again. My inclination is to stay focused on the task at hand right now, wiping out the SNP, and I think we should be careful not to get ahead of ourselves.
We need a leader though, that’s for sure. One that’s smart, influential, respected, totally trustworthy and committed to the cause of independence, who won’t be bought off and won’t be scared to square up to the establishment…
Cometh the hour, cometh the man…
Why was Murray Foote made CEO? Anyone with insights please get in touch with wings… ?I’ll pay a subscription fee to read that piece.
This whole thing is getting to be a total bore but I suppose that’s politics for you.
It would be good to hear some new & innovative ideas.
Ach maybe I’ll just compile another couple of playlists.
1. Goodbye SNP Playlist
2. What the fuck now Scotland? playlist.
“the UK joined, so the UK had to leave”
That is a nonsensical conclusion which only somebody with a very narrow mind and ridiculous levels of contempt for the public’s intelligence could ever think it would be accepted. Sorry. I do not accept such nonsense.
First of all, your second premise “the UK had to leave” is completely false. So you are basing your argument entirely on a false premise. The obvious conclusion is that when the foundations of your argument are false, your entire argument is false.
The “UK” did not have to leave. It was decided, against Scotland’s expressed democratic will and in violation of Scotland’s Claim of Right, that the UK would leave the EU what come may.
Secondly, there was no need for “the UK” to leave intact. That is bollocks. Only the Kingdom of England voted to leave. The Kingdom of England could have left the EU on its own by revoking the Treaty of Union first. The problem with that is that it would leave England in an impossibly vulnerable state. And THAT is the reason why “the UK had to leave the EU” intact. Scotland, as it has been for the last 300 years, has been the buoyancy that England needs to go the way it wants to go, and to hell with what Scotland wants.
So, before trying to lecture anybody else, learn the facts yourself first.
“So change the record FFS”
NO
“Also, maybe settle a wee bet”
NO
“Either you have a portfolio of these posts pre-created, or you’re an AI. Which is it?”
This is precisely what gives you away as a colonial apparatchik of the establishment. I have been in this and other threads for years highlighting that the way the people of Scotland is being denied the opportunity to vote for Scotland’s independence is by deliberately denying us the correct choice to select at every single election. This is not exclusive to Scotland mind. The British establishment has managed politics through this strategy at all times. It is precisely that strategy what has preserved this putrid two party system well beyond its sell by date. As an example, take the “referendum” to decide if FPTP was ditched or not. What options were the people given? Where they given the option they really wanted which was “proportional vote”? Hell no. That option was purposely left out of the options provided so it could not be selected. By adding a worse option to the present one, the establishment ensured the preservation of FPTP and hence its beloved 2-party system.
Now you go and attempt to fool me in the exact same way by offering me to choose between two falsehoods after you have deliberately left out from the selection the true option. Do you seriously expect me to fall for such amateurish psychological game?
Grow up.
Breastplate
Ellis continually puts all his faith in Holyrood 2026.
& All other “cunning plans for indy” is a waste of everyone’s time as well as derogatory comments about moonhowlers.
He also continually fails to grasp that is exactly what delivered an independence referendum & a devolution referendum. A convention. Not politicians, not Salmond, not Westminster. Average Joe public made it happen through political pressure. Politicians merely hijacked it towards the end.
Alba are onto a hiding to nothing. People really need to ditch the idea Holyrood 2026 will be spectacular success. They’ve made ziltch progress but are in fact in reverse.
Go back to basics. Joe Public had success before & will do so again. Alba don’t even have a plan for what exactly will happen if they won a Plebiscite election & the English just simply refused to acknowledge it which would be their prerogative to do because Holyrood is a branch office. A glorified county council. It carries no legal clout to start making demands. Westminster is the seat of power & they’ve just demonstrated they’ve hee-haw chance of even winning a seat. FPTP is no friend to new parties. Reform has success because UKip has been going for over 30 years.
Alex Salmond bangs on about Scots Sovereignty & then ignores
John Main: “it’s not all bad news this morning.”
Leaving aside your bizarre prediction that the fight between the Tories and Labour would be much closer than anyone was predicting, I’d say everything has panned out as expected.
With the shocking defeat of the SNP we have taken a massive step in the right direction and, as predicted, people are already excited about the future again.
BTW I don’t think we want to hear of former SNP troughers knocking at Alba’s door and being invited in for a little chat about the future… just saying, as they say.
*Alex Salmond bangs on about Scots Sovereignty & then ignores the very groups working on it. Why? There must be a reason?
Ellis also makes wild insinuations that if Alba aren’t an overnight success at Holyrood 2026 then it’s cause the Scots are all spineless & deserve to lose.
Naw, we’re just not stupid enough for a rehash of SNP Part Deux. Imagine winning a Plebiscite & then being told naw. Aye, well done on pissing off an entire electorate AGAIN. LOL. Another waste of everyone’s time.
We need a leader though, that’s for sure. Hatuey
Why? Are we all too dumb to think for ourselves? Can we not have many leaders or none.
It’s too much expecting one man to take on all the responsibility. We are adults we don’t need a babysitter.
I was thinking about the song ‘We don’t need another hero’ for my playlist ‘What the fuck now Scotland?’ I haven’t seen ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome’ so I’m not totally sure what this song is about.
We certainly don’t need another hero like Sturgeon that’s for sure.
Then there’s this song:
Holding Out For a Hero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FnOY86v390
(I like the Ella Mae Bowen version)
The question is should we be holding out for a hero.
I just love this song by Marc Cohn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMKiwiOiJsk&list=RDLMKiwiOiJsk&index=1
Yes we should be Listening to the maestro
but not totally reliant on him/her/them for our every move.
@Geri 12.39 pm
Ellis continually puts all his faith in Holyrood 2026.
& All other “cunning plans for indy” is a waste of everyone’s time as well as derogatory comments about moonhowlers.
Not all my faith, but most of it, yes because that seems to me – on the balance of probabilities – to be by far the most likely route to achieving independence in the medium term. I think we can forget the short term for now. I’ve never said no other routes were feasible and have consistently said there are multiple paths which *might* lead to independence.
The $64,000 question is which of the routes will work, and which is most likely to produce results the fastest.
It’s incumbent on you and other moonhowlers who believe in “cunning plans for indy” to show your route is both more likely and faster.
If you don’t want to be labelled a moonhowler then show us the money about how your woo-woo plans are going to work. Put up or shut up.
Average Joe public made it happen through political pressure. Politicians merely hijacked it towards the end.
More magical thinking. Devolution and the Scottish Parliament would still be a pipe dream if it wasn’t for those very political parties you purport to disdain. Non-party routes are a chimera.
Sure we might need a politician to do what is necessary in the way of paperwork to end the union but we should be their leader and not the other way around.
Geri,
Without Salmond there would have been no independence referendum as Sturgeon has shown. You can believe otherwise if you wish.
If Alex Salmond was in charge during the last 10 years, I believe we would now be independent. The task was much easier then and Sturgeon didn’t even take a shot at the open goals that were presented to the SNP in this time.
I also understand that this would be contradictory to your thinking that your way is the only way forward and absolutely nothing else will work.
We can all pick our favourite way forward as the one true path but all that means is a lot of people talking and not listening.
As I have said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with contingency plans.
You are, of course, entitled to believe otherwise.
Ellis
Wrong again. The political parties hijacked it at the end because they’d zero choice.
The SNP didn’t deliver devolution & they didn’t deliver an independence movement either. As I seem to remember they weren’t even at the table for Devo & had feck all MPs in Westminster for an independence referendum. Salmond capitalised on the devolution movement. The 79 group should’ve been warning enough for him that the SNP was polluted with shysters too feart to upset anyone but could only ever talk a good game.
Tell us yer great plan when England refuses a Plebiscite. Cause if you have no answer now then you still won’t have one for Holyrood 2026.
And as for Mains pish about Brexit. NI didn’t have to leave so that blows his nonsense we’d all to leave together. No we really didn’t. Scotland was perfectly entitled to barter it’s own agreement with the EU just as NI did.
This appeared in The Nationa. the writer is a consultant in Scotland’s NHS and has worked in England’s NHS.
He says what many know already. That Scotland’s NHS is far better than England’s generally. Further privatisation of Scotland’s health service is on the cards and should be resisted. Build a Convention on that?
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24419058.nhs-scotland-consultant-nervous-labours-health-plans/
“It makes me nervous. What seems like a straight-forward reassurance to not use private healthcare to replace NHS services is not forthcoming. Equally, the failure to move more decisively away from the austerity program of the last failed UK government is also concerning. Overall, I have little confidence that a Labour-led Scotland would either protect or recover the NHS in Scotland adequately.”
Breastplate
It would’ve happened with or without the SNP. Someone else would have done it.
Scotland had various groups working tirelessly in the background on devolution, independence, policy, constitutional change long before Salmond took a gamble & took up the batten & as we are all well aware now – they were nowhere near ready on currency, defence, Europe etc.
& Where are all those groups now? Disbanded by Sturgeon when she took over.
It’s not my way or the highway either. It’s a response to the nonsense it was only a political party who delivered an indyref & everything else going on in the background was just moonhowling nonsense.
Mia,
Sara Salyers is going cown the correct route to independence, not so much the political party route, but a legal challenging route,
Sara is challenging one legal aspect, but there are many many more legal challenges that can be made, and you contribute vastly with you logical sensible approach in raising questions and commenting in you’re posts.
Those that attack sensible and logical arguments and discussions do need calling out for their personal reasons for for being on a pro-Scottish independence site like wings when they seldom contribute to the case but rather try distract to dismiss any plan going forward other than handing our, (The people Sovereignty) over to politics and political parties,
It came to my attention long ago when reading the Scottish “Law Society blog” that just be because Westminster parliament messes with the Articles of the treaty of union, it does not mean it had the legal capacity to do so,
Which belies the truth of how Westminster actually veiws the treaty of union not being set in stone or binding in its context as a international Treaty.
My perception remains that the treaty of union borders on one on the biggest hoaxes played on Scotland due to how Westminster treat it as a joke,
As do most union commentors when they call it ancient guff, and that the rest of the world does not recognise Scotland,
Yet Scotland is one of the most important Countries in the world even today, for without Scotlands parliament being in a supposed union with England parliament all, (All other treaties instantly legally fall since 1707).
Sam
It won’t be protected & never will be.
People seem to forget that while they crow about health being devolved they fail to follow up with our budget isn’t.
If NHS England spends less on healthcare then NHS Scotland also gets less in its pocket money.
I dunno why ppl continue to fail to grasp that. England is moving towards privatisation & Scotland won’t escape it because when they’ve reduced to spending zero then we get zero.
There no Scottish Labour party either. They’re a branch office & do as they’re telt. The English will sell the NHS. It’s all they’ve left.
I know it well, Geri.
Our NHS is something not to be lost without a battle.
Scotland’s distinct constitutional tradition is best expressed by Lord Cooper, in the case of MacCormick v. Lord Advocate:
“The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law.”
In the pleadings of the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) in her prorogation case to the UK Supreme Court, it was noted that the 1707 parliamentary Union between England and Scotland may have created a new state, but it did not create one nation.
Do you ever get the impression that the mannie whom keeps calling 50% of Scots moonhowlers would just L o v e to be the one sitting in a up high position over Sovereign Scottish people, Lording it over the minion moonhowlers in a new state run global civic Scotland,
Dearie me, dearie me, he thinks half the population of Scottish people can see the emperors clothes.
There was a lull after the SNP got it’s doing, all the usual suspects, with frenetic contortions to avoid addressing the real issue :
the people hate identity politics, especially if promoted at the expense of “the real thing” i.e. independence, so running around all the time with a pride flag saying “we must do more for the trannies” is just going to kill you, in the end; and why should people like it anyway, it is there to offer special rights and protections for special groups and offers nothing to the majority – democracy, hello – is about people getting to vote for their own interests
so, the middle class twat brigade, i.e. bella will, eventually, be giving it – “we weren’t radical enough … it was DELAYS in implementing trannyism uber alles and a police state against hatecrimes, which put the people off”
the doggers blame it on us – wings, rev, salmond – largely and actually “marginalised” but somehow exerting baleful influence from the shadows; reminds me of a theory from the 70s, the soviets had this radio station that continuously transmitted this odd signal on this odd frequency (spy comms, sub comms, early warning radar?) – people wrote books about it claiming it was a mind control device designed to make people in the west, left-wing …
– if only we had such power; I can see them all out there in internet land … “confused” was being really waspish the other day … SMASH THE BRITISH STATE … gather weapons, make kill lists, infiltrate and subvert … all these randos on the internet, crouched over the glow of our computers in the early hours, cloaked like Darth Sidious, cackling … good, good …
“the failure of alba” – politics has tremendous inertia, it takes a lot to get in the game; maybe the BBC will promote alba and do their PR for them, like Farage, that “outsider” they just can’t get enough of. 8th time lucky! What a winner. BBC, all the promotion money can’t buy. Farage is an outsider, with a lot of friends on the inside.
Salmond should stick the boot in, bury them … I agree, I think I have said it, quite a lot; his enemies tried to put him in jail, that I couldn’t forgive. I am sure he could write a book or leak all the info not produced at trial, but that might destroy the SNP forever. I think maybe he worked on the basis of getting “madame mao” and her gang out, then “coming home”, alba being a temporary home; didn’t he get kicked out the SNP early on, then came back in? Which I think has been a big mistake – a clean demolition, soon after he was cleared, would have ended the “smell”.
– but having said that, I think Salmond knows a bit more about politics than me, and we are all just backseat drivers, or fans shouting tactics from the stands.
The SNP and their supporters, you can see the reeking narcissism belching off them :
(WE GOT FUCKED) … er, obviously, IT CAN’T HAVE BEEN ANYTHING WE DID … so, it was OTHER PEOPLE and we DIDNT DO OUR THING FAST ENOUGH … yes, that must be it … skips away happily
Ruby, being omniscient and something of an anarchist, I am naturally aware of views of history and society that give emphasis to wider forces, particularly those of “below”.
But there are very few examples in history where significant progress was made without clear and distinct leadership. In short, I subscribe to Thomas Carlisle’s “Great Man Theory”, whereby the history of the world is but the biography of great men;
“Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realisation and embodiment, of Thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world: the soul of the whole world’s history, it may justly be considered, were the history of these.“
This place is a good example. It’s only here because of a great man. The comments BTL are a fairly typical example of what happens when you put a bunch egoists in a room without order and leadership — despite the fact that we all are purportedly here as believers in the same cause, for the same reasons, etc.
It’s very easy to sit around spectating, criticising, and pontificating. Most people do that and have the luxury of doing that because of great men got off their backsides and built things.
destroys The Conundrum of the treaty of union, being treated as an International treaty of union is interesting.
Westminster altering many of the articles of that 1707 treaty and the terms of the agreement and deleting many of them as obsolete as the government of Great- Britain….. commits Suicide as it self destructs pulling the treaty of union rug out from underneath its own feet As it slowly but surely demolishes all the agreement terms and the Articles of the treaty of union.
There are certain terminologies and phrases within the treaty of union that are binding on Westminster parliament an should not be altered or made obsolete if it is taking the treaty of union as a legal International Treaty,
Again one suspects that the parliament in England considers it is the sole participant in the treaty of union, governing for England and Wales
why is main posting this morning – he is missing “the walk”
dee-dee-dee dee dee dee dee dee-dee
dah dah dah dah-da-dah dah
starmer was at davos in january, sunak wasn’t
obviously the people that matter have to pass on their instructions to their agent
NOT YOU RISHI
this is quite a read :
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/cx02gd0nkqno
Nigeria has been bribed/threatened to the tune of 150B USD to accept LGBTQ+
– the lobby has some amount of power, it has the EU in its pocket
Ghana got threatened by the IMF over similar issues the other day
trans rights is really an amazing laboratory which shows in detail, the precision and power of lobbying, and the ability of oligarchs to buy democracy
So the G-rea-t S-a-tan-s jackbooted soldiers have have all but been booted out of Airbase 101 in N-ig-er. The (US) will next focus on clearing Air Base 201, a $100-million drone facility near the city of Agadez in central N-ige-r.
The Nia-mey government have made a wise choice in booting out the Y-an-ks, as well as their long time colonial masters the French.
Maybe there’s a lesson for Scots in this.
Meanwhile I-r–a-n has a new Pr-esident Maso-ud Pe-zeshkian won 53% of the vote to succeed R-a-i-si who died in a helicopter crash.
One thing is for sure, Pezeshkian won’t be in the pocket of the Z–ion–ists, unlike Su-nak, Starmer, Sc-holtz, B-iden, Tr-ump, and many many more EU/world leaders
Geri,
“It would’ve happened with or without the SNP. Someone else would have done it.”
This is quite evidently not true, because it didn’t happen or hasn’t happened any other way.
“they were nowhere near ready on currency, defence, Europe etc.”
Again, the whole point of self determination is to make the decisions, not to worry about whether you’ve made a decision that might be right or might be wrong before you’re in the driving seat.
But to answer your questions on currency, it’s a negotiation process regarding transition, just the same as Defence, Europe or anything else, the important component is that Scotland is at the table representing itself.
This site has been running for some time now and there are people who haven’t worked out that removing England’s thieving hands from Scotland’s pockets is a good thing for Scotland or not.
They have to ask, “if we remove Westminster’s hands from our pockets, who will scratch my crotch”?
It’s slightly depressing, really.
Hatey McHateface says: at 11:44 am
“Look, Mia, the UK joined, so the UK had to leave. If we had a time machine, we could go back to the accession talks, and ensure the EU (the Common Market as it then was) signed separate treaties with England and Scotland (and the rest), so that if one of the Home Nations left, the other or others could remain.”
It’s water under the bridge now, but what you state is incorrect.
Article 48 contains this wording.
“ROADMAP FOR SUCCESSION IN EUROPEAN UNION MEMBERSHIP IN THE CASE OF MEMBER STATE’S SECESSION OR DISSOLUTION
Declaration of independence from a state arising from a member state’s secession or dissolution following a democratic process.
Notification of succession, from a European Union member state by the state emerging from a member state’s secession or dissolution. This act would notify of the new situation as well as the new state’s wish to succeed the predecessor state as a European Union member as a new state complying with the principles and conditions required for being a Union member with a model of market economy and required administrative capacity. The new state would commit the in accepting the entire flow of the European Union, and would want to immediately initiate the process of adaptation intended to ensure that European Union law is brought into line with the new situation, together with the commitment to adopt all acts that allow it to fulfill all the international obligations assumed by states as European Union members.
Act adopted by the European Union to recognise a new state’s succession arising from the secession or dissolution of another European Union member state as a Union member. This would mean the recognition of the predecessor state, if it should continue to exist and of the successor state(s) as members of the European Union and would have to contain the initial provision needed to guarantee the operation of the Union.
Establishment of the transitory arrangement:
— Application of the principle of continuity in acts not requiring changes
or amendment to the acts of secondary law to enable:
— The continuity of uniform application of the material provisions of the
European Union’s legal system throughout the new state’s territory.“
@ James Che
Thank you for your kind words. It is appreciated.
You say that you perceive the treaty of union as one of the biggest hoaxes played on Scotland due to how Westminster treats it as a joke.
I think it was not a hoax. I see it as a frontal attack and Scotland’s MPs refused to protect their country from such attack because they were far too preoccupied with their own financial gain and social status. This is exactly what we have seen for the last 10 years with the SNP. History indeed repeats itself.
We established in the past that while we agree on a lot of things, there are some minor aspects on which our opinions divert a little. I think the matter of the ToU might be one of those things.
Personally, I see the treaty of union as perfectly legitimate. But it is not something Scotland entered in voluntarily and it was most definitely instigated, if not forced, by the monarch through the control she was allowed to hold over Scotland’s parliament and aristocracy.
Those who effected the treaty and the frontal attack on Scotland it represented were the MPs and Peers sitting at Scotland’s parliament. They did so for their very own personal and political gain.
None of them were under any illusion that the people of Scotland wanted that treaty, yet, they abused their position of power to force it down the throats of the people of Scotland anyway. Just like they are doing today. How many of the so called “pro-independence” parties are talking about revoking the Treaty of Union and Act of Union with England? I hear none.
56 anti-union MPs was a mandate to end that darn treaty. Yet, those 56, then 35 and then 45 abused their power to continue preserving that treaty against the democratic will of the people of Scotland by keeping Scotland trapping in this toxic union.
Considering how many resources Scotland has, the blame for every single child and adult in Scotland below the poverty line lies on the lap of each and every single one of Scotland’s MPs and MSPs, as it is them who are ensuring the ransacking of Scotland’s assets continues at pace.
I do not believe it is “Westminster” who is playing the joke on us. It is our own MPs and MSPs who have been doing so, for their own personal gain, for the last 300 years.
The crown saw the treaty of union in 1706 as its way to ensure a supply of soldiers to England’s wars and also the way to secure control by the English monarch of the Scottish crown.
It is the treaty of union what has been securing the right of the Hanover line to Scotland’s crown since 1706. Because of this, I found rather hilarious those here who keep demanding that we stop looking at “old documents”! It is precisely that “ancient document” what entitles the current monarch to call themselves King, that not sovereign, of Scots. So I would happily say to them: “by all means, go ahead, ditch that old document that you have so much contempt for and ditch with it the right of the English crown to keep controlling Scotland’s”
The actual con here is that the English crown is empowering England’s part of the UK parliament to abuse, to oppress Scotland and to impose on it absolute rule. We see this with every single law, which is unfair to Scotland, that directly goes against the expressed democratic will of the people of Scotland, or that goes against the majority of the vote of Scotland’s MPs but is still passed as valid in that cesspit of Westminster, then rubber-stamped by the English monarch in what seems a direct breach of the Claim of Right and therefore the ToU, and then enacted by England’s government.
The monarch is not Scotland’s sovereign. We are. So who/what is empowering that monarch to continue rubber-stamping those abusive laws towards Scotland? That will be our own MPs and MSPs, who choose to swear allegiance to that monarch rather than to Scotland and to continue abiding by the Scotland Act, which parachutes an unelected representative of the crown to the middle of our executive cabinet so they can then proceed to hand control to the crown over Scotland’s legislative power thanks to a veto, given by that Scotland Act, over which legislation is debated in Scotland’s parliament chamber. That Scotland Act is empowering the English monarch to exercise absolute rule over Scotland and our MSPs are allowing that to happen.
It is therefore our own Scotland MPs and MSPs who are continuously legitimising the abuse and exploitation of Scotland as a colony.
The treaty is perfectly legal. What I do not think is legal is to use it as the excuse Westminster and the Crown have been using it as to treat Scotland as if it was another colony of the English crown. What I do no think is legal is to enable the continuous violation of the fundamental conditions of the treaty and then insist in looking the other way, like our MPs and MSPs have been doing, to avoid declaring the treaty void and null and risk losing their own privileges.
My problem with Alba’s strategy is that it is the exact same as the one pursued by the SNP. Both strategies hinge around treating Scotland as the subordinate of Westminster and as the property of the Kingdom of England for the sake of preserving the ToU and the privileges of the crown.
Both, Alba and SNP appear to refuse to treat Scotland for what it is: a sovereign state who entered a voluntary treaty of union and therefore can exit that treaty whenever it wants.
Both parties appear to refuse the recognition of the people of Scotland as the real sovereign of Scotland and instead choose to bow to the English monarch.
I found sickening watching the political fraud Sturgeon, as Scotland’s democratically elected FM and representing Scotland, bowing like a minion to the English monarch when it should be the other way round: England’s monarch bowing to Scotland’s sovereign: the people of Scotland.
I also found sickening YOusaf’s cowardice when, after claiming to be a republican, he almost lost his arse running to insult and humiliate the people of Scotland by sending the stone of destiny down south so the English king could sit his entitled arse on it.
For as long as Holyrood remains subordinated to Westminster and to the crown by means of the Scotland Act, anybody wanting to use that parliament to deliver independence will have to continue begging for consent. That consent will never be forthcoming, therefore this is a route that will not succeed.
We have been there, we have done that and it did not work. It is absurd we are pursuing the same again. It did not work not because Scotland did not vote yes, but because yes was not allowed to be seen as the winner, otherwise brexit and the continuous intervention of England’s warmongers in USa’s wars could not happen.
The exact same con trick will happen again if we go for the same route, so for goodness sake, let’s move on and let’s get out of this hamster wheel that is taking us nowhere no matter how fast we keep running.
I know we disagree on this point, James Che, but from all the history books I have read from when the time of the union was enacted and the decade after it, the belief was that the Scottish parliament was still represented by Scotland’s MPs and Peers. They believed they could reconvene the Scottish parliament at any time they wanted. If they did not do so was because they knew doing so would automatically invalidate the treaty and what was seen as worse for them, they would put at risk the right of the Hanoverian line to Scotland’s crown. This was a problem for them because most of those elected to “represent” Scotland in Westminster at the time were aristocrats which had an awful lot to gain financially and in terms of status and connections from being seen as in favour of the crown.
I believe the exact same remains true today. Scotland’s old parliament still lives in Scotland’s MPs, not Scotland’s MSPs for as long as they insist in keep subjugating Scotland to Westminster by abiding to the Scotland Act.
In my view, the only way the Scottish parliament can actually revoke the treaty of union, declare real independence or negotiate independence with the Kingdom of England, Scotland’s real partner, is if the MSPs ditch the Scotland Act and overrule Scotland’s MPs first.
But to do that, they require two things:
1. a mandate to do so by Scotland’s sovereign: the people of Scotland.
2. swearing allegiance to Scotland’s sovereign, not the English monarch.
If we do not see this mandate in the manifesto of any party in 2026, then none of them, in my opinion, will be really pursuing Scotland’s independence. They will be pursuing some variation of devolution or subjugation of Scotland to the English crown.
“Secession” of the “UK” is not independence. It is continuing to subjugate Scotland to the English crown and it is demoting Scotland from the sovereign state it is into a region of the Kingdom of England.
It is not the “UK” government nor the crown who Scotland has to negotiate its independence with. The UK government, just as the crown, are subordinates to the Treaty of Union and therefore subordinates to Scotland. The real partner Scotland has to negotiate its independence with is the Kingdom of England.
For this reason, every time I heard a politician talking about negotiating independence or a referendum with Westminster or the UK government, I immediately switch off because I know they are not really pursuing Scotland’s independence. What they are pursuing is the preservation of the ToU and the right of the English monarch to continue holding control over Scotland’s crown. In my view, they are acting as crown minions, not representatives of Scotland.
Alba’s strategy appears to be relying far too much on votes for the SNP in the constituency vote to create some form of pro-independence alliance.
The SNP has demonstrated for the last 10 years that it is not pursuing Scotland’s independence and worse, it has actively sought to deny the people of Scotland the opportunity to vote for it. It has also demonstrated it has no intention in establish any alliance with Alba.
So this strategy is doomed to fail and will not be anything more than yet another way to make us lose another 5 years of our time. 5 years when the opportunistic British state will continue to drain Scotland of its power and resources and when Starmer’s labour would have made huge inroads into selling Scotland bit by bit through the con of the free ports, would have privatised what is left of the NHS to secure a trade agreement with USA and will have us at the verge of another of USA’s neverending self-serving hegemonic wars.
Personally, I think that, if we are really seeking Scotland’s independence, we need to revoke the ToU and Act of Union with England. For this reason, I believe moving the attention from the GE to the HOlyrood election was a mistake, unless Mr Salmond intends to ditch the Scotland Act and gain a mandate from the people of Scotland to overrule Scotland’s MPs.
For as long as I do not see or hear any political party advocating for such thing, I will continue to be very sceptical of the real intentions of the so called “pro-independence” parties.
Scotland is as much the UK as England is, so the concept that it can negotiate independence with itself is absurd. For this reason, demoting Scotland to the status of a region of the UK so it can be seen as
* subordinated to the UK rather than above it
* seceding from the UK rather than ending it
* preserving the privilege of the English crown over Scotland rather than ending it when the treaty ends
*treating the English monarch as if they were Scotland’s sovereign rather than its own people
should be anathema to any political party genuinely pursuing Scotland’s independence and genuinely seeking to see Scotland as a sovereign independent state in full control over its territory, boundaries, assets, people and trade agreements.
@Geri 1.21 pm
Tell us yer great plan when England refuses a Plebiscite. Cause if you have no answer now then you still won’t have one for Holyrood 2026.
England, or more precisely Westminster can’t cancel elections. It’s up to the independence movement to unite around the platform that Holyrood 2026 – and indeed every subsequent General Election at Holyrood and Westminster are de facto plebiscitary.
If a majority votes for pro-independence parties, and those parties all stood on a plebiscitary platform, then its up to the Scottish people not to take “No” for an answer in the event Westminster says it won’t recognise the result.
Whether the British nationalists have the balls or the political support to do so has to be open to doubt. Whether the international community would stand by and accept a unionist veto is also open to doubt.
In the end the most important thing at that point is whether the majority who would just have voted in favour of independence meekly get back in their box, or simply ignore the unionist veto and get on building their new state. If we’re content to be told “No” then we don’t really deserve independence in the first place, or to be regarded as a discrete people at all.
The rest of the world, including peoples who had to fight and die for their freedom would scorn us for the moral cowards we would have proven to be if we just accept that our self determination is in the gift of Westminster.
More to the point however Geri, how is what you and aw the moonhowlers propose more likely to be accepted as legitimate by either Westminster or the international community? The answer of course is that it isn’t. Indeed, the opposite is the case. The international community doesn’t accept that Scotland is a colony or a non-self governing territory.
It frowns on UDI’s and will only recognise them in exceptional circumstances which simply don’t apply in our case: ask the Kosovars or inhabitants of Timor L’Este how long it took for the international community to leap to their defence!
The chances of some legalistic rabbit being pulled out of a hat delivering the dissolution of the union, or some mass uprising of the people leading to a new Convention of the Estates, or any of the other fervid imaginings of Salvo, Liberation Scotland and Sarah Salyers are just unicorns and rainbows.
Support for them makes Alba’s support look huge in comparison. If it isn’t true, show us the plan, the detailed expert legal and constitutional analyses from all those folk out there who probably have no good reason to support Westminster. Failure to do so might make folk think that it isn’t being produced because it simply doesn’t exist.
Alert readers will no doubt be thinking what I’m thinking, irrespective of the baying of the few dozen usual suspects in here. Situation normal.
The English Wokes have won this Election. Gains fro Labour, Fib Dooms and Greens tell me they won and won easily. Ironically SNP Wokes got hammered but not all of them.
It turned my stomach to see Sturgeon on the Goggle Box.She is clearly being protected by Brit Establishment right now.
It fucked me off to see Blackman getting re-elected. It fucked me off to hear Mairi Black spouting some shit as well.
Sad to see Angus McNeil not getting re=elected.
The best good point of the night was to see Dougie Ross losing because the White Settlers voted for Reform Nazis and not for him. Oh well.
Obviously with election turn out down significantly that maybe some 40% of “Nationalist/Yes” vote stayed at home totally.
I am Philosophical as Savilles pal Starmer will be a disaster for Scotland and UK.
Can the SNP brand be saved
Oh and being a prophet for a second – Grangemouth is fucked. Starmer will be a Thatcher Mk2 and will be aided and abetted in that by the Wokes.
“England, or more precisely Westminster can’t cancel elections”
It won’t cancel elections but, as we have just seen, the establishment will manipulate the options presented to us to ensure the independence option is never available.
The outcome is exactly the same, so what is the difference?
How many times do we have to hit our head against the same reinforced concrete wall until we realise we cannot go “through” the wall so we have to either jump over or walk around?
I think 10 years of hitting our heads against the same wall has been more than enough, thank you.
“then its up to the Scottish people not to take “No” for an answer in the event Westminster says it won’t recognise the result”
Beautiful sounding words but meaningless. Because, how does that work in practice if our “representatives” refuse to demand what is rightfully ours as they have been doing for the last 10 years?
“The rest of the world, including peoples who had to fight and die for their freedom would scorn us for the moral cowards we would have proven to be if we just accept that our self determination is in the gift of Westminster”
The people from Slovakia and the Check republic must be pissing themselves laughing at us right now when, despite having sent 56, then 35 and then 45 anti-union MPs, the useless wankers still kept us trapped in this union to preserve their salaries and access to the subsidised bars. Yet, here we are. Everybody and their dog could continue laughing at as in our faces and that of our useless representatives that it will change absolutely nothing. So more nice sounding words from you but absolutely worthless in practical terms.
” what you and aw the moonhowlers propose more likely to be accepted as legitimate by either Westminster or the international community?”
Why on earth does Scotland as an independent sovereign state have to be accepted by Westminster? What is westminster? Westminster is a byproduct of the treaty of union, a subordinate of the Treaty of Union, which in itself is a subordinate of the parliament of Scotland. Westminster has no right to “accept” or “reject” any of Scotland’s decisions. If we end the treaty of union, we end Westminster as the UK parliament and with it its perception that it has to “accept” or can “reject” anything Scotland decides. I think what you mean is “to be accepted by the KIngdom of England. Well, then, what right has the kingdom of England to refuse Scotland’s independence?
As for the world accepting Scotland as an independent sovereign state, why shouldn’t they? The ToU is an international treaty subjected to international law. It is perfectly legitimate for Scotland, under international law, to unilaterally end that treaty at any time of its choosing. So stop making up crap.
“It frowns on UDI’”
Unilaterally revoking an international treaty is not the same as “UDI”. If it was, the UK would have “UDI’d” from the EU and therefore should be frown upon by every country in the world. Do you see that at all?
For goodness sake, stop making things up.
“The chances of some legalistic rabbit being pulled out of a hat delivering the dissolution of the union”
“legalistic rabbit” what nonsense are you talking about, man? Have you actually taken any time of reading any of the Hansard transcripts at all? Your so called “legalistic rabbit” is often being pulled out of the hat in those transcripts.
“Support for them makes Alba’s support look huge in comparison”
And what angle are you looking at it from? If you are lying down on the floor, even a toddler looks much taller than you. From where I am sitting, support for both does not look that dissimilar. You appear to be as prone to exaggeration and hyperbole as Gordon Brown is.
“Alert readers will no doubt be thinking what I’m thinking”
Alert readers immediately realise there are many points where you don’t have a clue of what you are talking about, yet you choose to continue waffling on.
@Dan says 6 July, 2024 at 4:14 pm
Thanks for the information.
I can’t promise I’ll retain it all.
@Republicofscotland says: 6 July, 2024 at 3:22 pm
Z–ion–ists
You can give it up now, the damage is done.
What’s the story with your pig-ignorant and disrespectful refusal to spell “Scotland” correctly?
Is it just another example of your humongous anti-semitism?
The story of the Scots being descended from one of the lost tribes of the Holy Land is almost certainly apocryphal, so you can relax.
Mia
Ignored says:
6 July, 2024 at 4:15 pm
Personally, I see the treaty of union as perfectly legitimate. But…
I don’t see it as legitimate, because it is fundamentally incompatible with Scotland’s Constitution and always has been, but I concede, what the ToU has in it’s favour is 300 years of largely uncontested recognition and recognised conventions, yet every one of those recognised conventions simultaneously remains fundamentally flawed but the flaws are habitually ignored. Indeed, ignoring the truth is a seedy convention all by itself.
For me, the easy bit is ending the Treaty. There have been so many violations and literal breaches of the Articles of Union that Scotland could cite any one of them to collapse the Treaty as a broken contract. If it could be done authoritatively, Scotland should cite every breach as evidence of the habitual disregard and contempt for Scotland’s rights.
I don’t even think there’s any problem taking public opinion along with us. How would “they” demonstrate that public opinion was not on our side? Hold a referendum? Let them try.
Would there be blood in the streets? I believe not. The outrageous and grotesquely unconstitutional Brexit subjugation was a slap in the face for Scotland, yet outrage came there none. If the people are so docile in subjugation, what obstacle can they be to liberation?
The real obstacle I see is the dirty double dealing beneath the counter we can expect from the fickle International community which is amenable to the UK’s Westminster Government. Shady groups and lobbyists from warmongering Nations want a subdued Scotland, and they will orchestrate objections.
That is why I felt Brexit was vital to the cause; because we’d have secured instant International Recognition from 26 sovereign nations sympathetic to our circumstance. That would given us tremendous leverage, but we pissed it all away very cheaply. Well, Sturgeon did. Imbecile.
I suspect Scotland would yet get adequate International Recognition, but it could be more complicated. EU recognition is not the safe bet it was in the shadow of Brexit, and any BRICS derived recognition will sow division and acrimony which may divide opinion and cloud the issue of recognition.
There’s a lot of work needing to be done. Legwork, influencing, persuading, placating… preparing.
Scotland doesn’t need a lame and Vichy Devolved Assembly. Scotland needs a ballsy and defiant Government-in-Waiting which stands firm and knowledgeable in the defence of Scotland’s abused Constitutional Rights, and works its fingers to the bone along similar lines to the 1980’s style Scottish UN Committee with Willie MacRae.
I believe SALVO are coming close to doing that, but we need more, bigger, better, etc, etc, etc… SALVO needs unequivocal support from all quarters, but isn’t getting it… yet.
While I firmly believe the essence of Independence is contained in the above beliefs, believing in the “big game” does not compromise fervent belief in the Little Game. Yes, we should fight elections. Yes, we should contest subjugations. Yes, we should discredit the unconstitutional credentials of the UK Supreme Court and indeed the Scotland Act. Fight and disrupt everything, everywhere. Give Joanna Cherry license to grind Westminster to dust using the supremacy of Scots Law wherever such potency exists.
Independence will be ours once the people know the power of their sovereign birthright. We needs victories, both big and small. It will come as a consequence of our self belief and confidence; the very things Sturgeon has done her level best to destroy.
@Mia says:6 July, 2024 at 4:15 pm
Loving your post.
I’ll keep checking in to see if anybody has read it and cared enough to post a summary.
For some time now, I’ve been wondering about the potential for this place to be one of the biggest and best online hoaxes ever, BTL at least.
Consider …
The boy who can’t spell “Scotland”.
The woman who named herself after a popular and widely known troll.
Then there’s you, showing all the attributes of AI, with a three-letter name, two of which are “AI”.
As is so often the case, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Hatey McHateface says: at 5:51 pm
“Thanks for the information.
I can’t promise I’ll retain it all.”
Dear John,
Nae bother, jist thought it would be useful to remind you seeing as it has been pointed out to you before. Plus it’s worth remembering stuff like that as you’ll also look marginally less of an arse if you reduce the amount of shite you post. 😉
HTH
@ Logorrhea Mia 5.40 pm
The international community doesn’t accept Scotland is a sovereign state. Legally it isn’t a sovereign state. Our passports aren’t Scottish they’re British, however much we wish it were otherwise.
The international community may accept the Scots are a people and that they are entitled to self determination in accordance withe the UN charter, but that right is neither automatic or unlimited. Their recognition will only come if they accept the process used to obtain independence as valid.
Using a novel, legalistic, non-parliamentary route which doesn’t involve a clear majority voting in favour in either a referendum or plebiscitary elections will be much, much more difficult to achieve. Not impossible, but vanishingly unlikely unless we can demonstrate the use of violence or flagrant oppression. We can do neither.
We’re not a colony, we just lack enough people with the balls to put an X on a piece of paper. That’s not colonialism. that just a lack of moral courage.
There’s only one side in this argument making shit up Mia: yours. Trying to hide your lack of coherent argument behind the splatter gun super abundance of words you insist on spaffing BTL isn’t fooling anyone but a handful of weirdos in here.
Hautey
What you wrote is very depressing Hautey
I suppose you are correct people need to be led and are easily led. The downside of that is they can be led into doing despicable things. They can also be very easily manipulated for example by the media. It’s a sad state of affairs Hautey don’t you think.
You say ‘This place is a good example. It’s only here because of a great man’
Which great man is that? The one who invented electricity television, the computer, html the English language or what?
You say
The comments BTL are a fairly typical example of what happens when you put a bunch egoists in a room without order and leadership — despite the fact that we all are purportedly here as believers in the same cause, for the same reasons, etc.
You seem be calling out for dictatorship. Geri could be just the woman for the job.
She could keep us right telling us what is and isn’t a priority at any particular time.
I would describe the comments on her for the most part as brain storming and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Sure we are all believers in independence but we don’t know how we can achieve that hence all the different opinions.
It would be handy if a ‘great man’ could come along and tell us how.
We don’t need a leader just someone who knows the secret.
I seem to recall, that the reason Gordon (britin,britin,britin) Broon said the vow wasn’t delivered was due to the Tories being elected.
So…given Labour now have a whopping majority in Westminster and Labour’s union jack boy (and closet Tory), Iain Murray is Scotland’s colonial governor on behalf of the English, their is no good reason why the entire vow cannot be made to happen.
Is any Scottish politician going to hold lying Labour to their seemingly forgotten promises, the words of dinosaur Broon, the promise of the most powerful devolved parliament in the known universe, etc, etc..
If I were the Alba strategist, I would be hammering that home until the Scottish election. The endless denials of Labour would be hilarious. What a political weapon to have, here is what Labour promised Scotland if they voted NO to independence, and NOW in 2024 at last they have the power to deliver, so WHY won’t they???? That broken promise by Labour should be hung around their necks until the Scottish parliament elections, akin to an albatross;
Quote ..Ah wel-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young;
Instead of the Cross the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
From ‘The Rime of the Ancyent marinere’, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Sadly, I do not think the SNP at any level have the political fire or acumen to take the fight to Labour in such a way. Will Alba? Will anybody?
Breeks at 601pm,
Agree with every word. We will never achieve independence by waiting for England to give permission. THAT just isn’t going to happen. When Scotland does decide to end the unwanted undemocratic union treaty (which it can do without England’s permission), from that second onwards, what London thinks of it is irrelevant. England then becomes a foreign country, and has no say. A lot of folk just cannot seem to grasp that. Oh, of course England would not like it, and might threaten all kinds of nonsense, with lots of bluster, but from the point the treaty was ended, they would be acting as a foreign government.
I find this post very weird! For a long time I thought Geri was a bloke I think I may have been correct.
Yes Gerry the response I got was quite a surprise but very informative.
Are we safe now from nuclear fall out? I noticed you’ve been discussing the election. I’m wondering if the 2024 General election will be the height of conversation when we are searching through the ruble for a shoe.
Moixx posted the following on a previous thread in response to Rob who doesn’t think the GRR topic is a priority.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-cuckoos/comment-page-1/#comment-2874080
Rob @ 4.06pm
“The whole GRR topic is so far down the list of priorities it is essentially out of sight. … Just about everyone is completely uninterested in it and all its associated ramifications… Nobody cares about the issue very much…”
———————————
You now wouldn’t vote for independence because of the “woke moronic incompetents” but at the same time you think that the very thing that’s lead to this situation isn’t a relevant topic for discussion. Seems a bit self-contradictory (assuming it’s the same Rob).
@mia I’m amazed as this praise for Eva Comrey.
Look what happened last time a woman was put on a pedestal
No one is more important than unity.
Kenny always planned to stand in Grangemouth.
Wasn’t that the reason Eva left, because she wanted Alba to put her forward?
Also as someone else said, instead of just getting on with her campaign, she and her supporters called Kenny a carpet bagger, which was disgraceful.
But many believed it, which didn’t help his chance of getting elected.
Not that going by the results, he came close.
Grangemouth more will be the outcome.
Eva and pals were also slagging off Yvonme Ridley for standing in Newcastle.
When Yvonne’s focus was Gaza, disgraceful pettiness IMO
“I don’t see it as legitimate, because it is fundamentally incompatible with Scotland’s Constitution and always has been”
I find this point very interesting, Breeks. Please, can you elaborate a little bit more on this? I read through the records of the parliament of Scotland and the MPs against the union brought up in a couple of occasions that the treaty was a violation of Scotland’s constitution, just like you say, but, as far as I could make up, they were referring to the Claim of Right.
I must admit I have not yet looked in detail at the Scottish constitution and it is something I am planning to do, but I would be very interested in reading your take on this.
At the time, when I was reading through the parliament records, I interpreted the treaty as being a violation of the Scottish constitution if the crown of Scotland was being subordinated to the Crown of England – we all remember the wording of the Declaration of Arbroath. But I thought this had been circumvented by
a. including in the articles of the union the fundamental condition that Scotland’s crown, sceptre, seal and favours and also records were to be kept in Scotland at all times.
b. the inclusion of the Claim of Right as an absolute condition of the treaty in all times
c. keeping the body of Scottish law as separate and the fundamental condition that decisions of a court in Scotland could not be overruled by a court in England
d. and then the fact that the ToU fabricated a “new” kingdom “great Britain”, signifying that the crowns of Scotland and England remained intact and most importantly, still a la par with each other.
The other factor that is clear throughout the treaty is that at no point it is demanded for Scotland to terminate its own parliament nor is prohibited to reconvening it, and also there is nothing in the treaty that claims England MPs gained sovereignty over Scotland with the treaty.
The treaty says that the “Kingdom of Great Britain” can only be represented by one parliament – this has already been violated, as Holyrood is a branch of the parliament of Great Britain. But it does not say anything regarding the kingdoms of Scotland or England having additional parliaments.
However, having said that, for what I have read in the memoirs written by some of Scotland’s Peers and MPs at the time of the union or soon after, they saw themselves perfectly entitled to reconvene Scotland’s parliament at any time of their choosing and they saw that as the de-facto termination of the ToU. These were some of the people contemporary to the ToU, including some who had been MPs at Scotland’s parliament before becoming MPs in WEstminster, so they would know what the articles they themselves approved (and some of them which were commissioners for the treaty actually wrote) meant.
There was another thing in the treaty that always caught my attention. This was the fact that the treaty asks for the parliaments of England and Scotland to revoke any laws pre-union that contravened the articles of the treaty.
Interestingly, none of the parliaments did that. Scotland’s laws were revoked by Westminster AFTER the union had started, which, as a parliament of a different kingdom, had absolutely no right to do so, unless Scotland’s MPs and peers sitting there were acting as the actual parliament of Scotland.
But the wording of the treaty itself is one thing. Another very different thing is how it has been used and abused over the last 300 years, and how our useless representatives have chosen to turn a blind eye to the multiple violations of its fundamental conditions by Westminster and the crown.
“For me, the easy bit is ending the Treaty”
I agree. All that is required is for
a. Scotland’s MPs and the remaining Peers to reconvene Scotland’s old parliament or,
b. to empower Holyrood to become Scotland’s parliament. This will require two things, overruling MPs and Peers and ditching the Scotland Act, or
c. to create a convention of the states that overrules MPs and Holyrood.
Because it would be so easy, and it has been in the power of the SNP to do so for the last 10 years, don’t you find it incredibly surprising that not a single political party dares to talk about it and instead insists in following this stupid secession route setting Scotland to fail?
I do
“The real obstacle I see is the dirty double dealing beneath the counter we can expect from the fickle International community which is amenable to the UK’s Westminster Government”
And that is why the treaty has to be revoked – to legally remove completely Westminster’s authority or any English crown to exercise any form of control over Scotland that can be seen as legitimate.
We have had 10 years of SNP yet they have not lifted a finger to educate neither the people in Scotland nor the world on this. They should have been shouting this from the rooftops. Instead, they insist in pursuing the route that subjugates Scotland as the property of the Kingdom of England.
Unfortunately, I think we are always to expect dirty double dealings, particularly coming from USA – Hence its interference sending so many of Scotland’s politicians for “education” as “leaders” to USA. I would not be surprised if there were to be some dirty double dealings from some of the former colonies still under control of the English crown.
” Well, Sturgeon did. Imbecile”
Don’t forget the rest of Scotland’s MPs and MSPs and the crown. ALL of them played their part in letting this deliberate abuse and violation of the Claim of Right and by default the ToU to take place.
“Yes, we should fight elections”
On this point we diverge. To me, it is only worthwhile draw our attention and invest our energy in elections when the option we want is made available to us. If it has been deliberately removed to deny us the opportunity to choose it, as it was done in the last GE, then there is absolutely no point whatsoever in taking part. In such scenario, elections are nothing more than a distraction, a waste of time, and a way for the establishment to legitimise our own subjugation in the eyes of the world. Not engaging on them and denying them endorsement their flawed game is the best option, in my view.
“Give Joanna Cherry license to grind Westminster to dust using the supremacy of Scots Law wherever such potency exists”
Unfortunately, she does not longer hold a seat in any parliament, so she cannot claim she is representing Scotland at the moment. So how do you think that could be changed? by inviting her to join a convention?
Unfortunately, for as long as Ms Cherry remains part of the SNP, she is going to be constrained by whatever diktat whomever is pulling the strings of the party is choosing to impose.
“Independence will be ours once the people know the power of their sovereign birthright”
Never truer words were spoken. I was shocked recently to find out that none of the children in my family had been taught about the treaty of Union at school. They were told plenty about UK’s imperialism, and the colonies, but nothing about the treaty of union or Scotland’s pre-union history. And that is despite having a “nationalist” majority at Holyrood and Westminster for 10 years and an SNP led council. What a joke. I am absolutely disgusted by that, to be frank.
@mia I’m amazed as this praise for Eva Comrey.
Look what happened last time a woman was put on a pedestal
No one is more important than unity.
Kenny always planned to stand in Grangemouth.
Wasn’t that the reason Eva left, because she wanted Alba to put her forward?
Also as someone else said, instead of just getting on with her campaign, she and her supporters called Kenny a carpet bagger, which was disgraceful.
But many believed it, which didn’t help his chance of getting elected.
Not that going by the results, he came close.
Grangemouth more will be the outcome.
Eva and pals were also slagging off Yvonme Ridley for standing in Newcastle.
When Yvonne’s focus was G—, disgraceful pettiness IMO
Posted this again as last time I mentioned a banned name, my comment disappeared
From The National
“He [Professor McCorquodale] said: “The only possible international legal route available for the people to {of] Scotland to bring their claim for the right to self-determination by secession is through the support of States for an Advisory Opinion to the ICJ [International Court of Justice].”…
“…In his analysis, Dunlop {Roddy, KC] went on: “The main proposed solution is ‘through a convention of elected and diverse representatives from across Scotland with a clear majority in favour’.
McCorquodale decision here
https://assets.nationbuilder.com/albaparty/pages/659/attachments/original/1687279203/OPINION_ON_MATTERS_RELATING_TO_INTERNATIONAL_LEGAL_ISSUES_CONCERNING_THE_RIGHT_TO_SELF-DETERMINATION_FOR_THE_PEOPLE_OF_SCOTLAND.pdf?1687279203
We’re not a colony, we just lack enough people with the balls to put an X on a piece of paper. That’s not colonialism. that just a lack of moral courage.
Ellis
Maybe we lack the balls due to colonialism.
The big problems isn’t the lack of balls it’s the lack of a piece of paper.
I think it’s time we stopped focusing on the SNP and started focusing on Labour at Westminster.
@ Robert Louis at 6:54 pm
Re. Brown and the VOW published in Daily Rancid by Murray Foote (who’s now SNP CEO).
It’s worth remembering that the NuSNP are trying to work with Labour.
You know, the Labour that wanted devolve the least powers to Scotland in the Smith Pish Commission…
https://x.com/grouse_beater/status/948353366400397313
“The international community doesn’t accept Scotland is a sovereign state. Legally it isn’t a sovereign state”
It can revert to the status of a sovereign state at any time of its choosing. The only thing it needs is to force its self-serving MPs to reconvene Scotland’s old parliament and to legitimately revoke the treaty and Act of Union with England, to which Scotland is perfectly entitled to do legitimately.
“The international community may accept the Scots are a people and that they are entitled to self determination in accordance withe the UN charter”
They do. Look at USA, they fully recognise Scotland as a people. How many of them claim to be of Scots (not British, mind) descent? In fact, if you had traveled all over Europe, you will realise the Scottish people are seen as a people all over Europe. You are very disingenuously (and unsuccessfully) attempting to make things look far more difficult than they really are.
“that right is neither automatic or unlimited”
It is automatic and unlimited. The only reason for Scotland not having been been exercising that right is because our own “representatives” both in Westminster and Holyrood have chosen to abuse their positions of power to deny it to us.
“Their recognition will only come if they accept the process used to obtain independence as valid”
There is nothing “not valid” with legally revoking an international treaty which Scotland is legally entitled to do. It is exactly the same thing the UK did with its treaty of union with the EU. Everybody and their dog saw the EU referendum as rigged. Even an English court admitted it was rigged but it could not force Westminster to repeat it because the referendum had been “advisory” therefore it had been really the choice of the UK government to take the result as valid.
“Using a novel, legalistic, non-parliamentary route which doesn’t involve a clear majority voting in favour in either a referendum or plebiscitary elections will be much, much more difficult to achieve”
First of all, the revocation of the treaty is not a “novel” route as you claim it to be. It has been in the minds of MPs and Peers since the union was conceived. If you had read the memories of those MPs and peers like I did, you would realise that at no point they considered a majority of votes was ever needed to either join or end the union. All what was needed, and all what is needed today, is a majority of anti-union MPs with the balls to actually end the treaty and end the union. That is all.
That is also all what the Checks and the Slovaks needed to end their union as “Czechoslovakia”.
“unless we can demonstrate the use of violence or flagrant oppression. We can do neither”
Don’t be ridiculous and leave Gordon’s hyperbole at one side. All what we need is an international court.
“We’re not a colony”
As I have mentioned in the past already, I agree with you. Scotland is not a colony, but the useless self-serving parasites who pass for Scotland’s representatives have allowed England MPs and the English crown to continue treating Scotland as if it was a colony.
“we just lack enough people with the balls to put an X on a piece of paper”
No we don’t. Since 18 September 2014 we have not had the opportunity to put an X by the option we want. This option has been consistently denied to us, election after election after election. And that is colonialism on steroids as a consequence of the lack of moral courage from those who call themselves “Scotland’s” representatives. The crown installing its unelected representative by the back door in the middle of Scotland’s cabinet so it can control both the executive and the legislative powers is a beautiful example of colonialism and absolute rule.
“There’s only one side in this argument making shit up”
Indeed there is, Andy Ellis, your side. It does not matter how much ad hominem and hyperbole you use to decorate your waffle. It remains waffle all the same
Talking about “weirdos”, “incoherent arguments” and “splatter gun super abundance of words” or “spaffing BTL”, I would advise you take a hard look at yourself on a mirror. You will see all those things reflected right back at you.
Salvo are I presume in the process of producing evidence to the international community that the Treaty of Union was illegal from day one. This evidence cannot be denied, and frightens the life of the English government.
The international community cannot act upon it but it can acknowledge that the Treaty of Union is infact not legally binding, that will open the door for Scots to go ahead with dissolving what never existed in the first place.
“No one is more important than unity”
Absolutely. So how was unity pursued by having Mr MacAskill running for the same constituency as Ms Comrie so they were both competing for the same vote?
Sorry, I am afraid I do not see appropriate either or as a sign of true commitment to a political view when somebody in a party pursuing Scotland’s independence chooses to put that on a temporary hold so they can go to stand for Gaza instead at an English constituency.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Mr McKaskill and for Mr Hanvey. I think they are both great assets to Scotland and very much hope they both get a seat in Holyrood in 2026. But I am sorry to say that move in that constituency didn’t look good and did very little in my eyes to give credence to the “unity for independence” stance of the party.
This is just my opinion as a voter. I am not a member of Alba nor I plan to be.
“No one is more important than unity”
Absolutely. So how was unity pursued by having Mr MacAskill running for the same constituency as Ms Comrie so they were both competing for the same vote?
Sorry, I am afraid I do not see appropriate either or as a sign of true commitment to a political view when somebody in a party pursuing Scotland’s independence chooses to put that on hold so they can go to stand for something else entirely at an English constituency instead.
I have a lot of respect and admiration for Mr McKaskill and for Mr Hanvey. I think they are both great assets to Scotland and very much hope they both get a seat in Holyrood in 2026. But I am sorry to say that move in that constituency didn’t look good and did very little in my eyes to give credence to the “unity for independence” stance of the party.
This is just my opinion as a voter. I am not a member of your party nor I plan to be.
Mia. If Scotland did what Catalonia did. Had a referendum then declared lindependence. Then set up in Holyrood as an independent government.
It would be up to the Brits to send in the troops. However this is not Catalonia, so the Brits wouldn’t dare send in military police from England to beat the crap out of citizens.
To me the weakness in our government is to act instead of talk. Actions do indeed speak louder than words.
Westminster is quite happy for Scotland to beg and moan. That means there won’t be any repercussions.
A small act of defiance creates the butterfly effect. It only needs the guts to carry it out.
Well done Chris a brilliant cartoon as usual. How did my bets do in the General Election. I lost the main bet of 40 plus MPs for Labour. I won 8 out of 10 Constituencies. The Constituencies I lost were Dundee Central and Aberdeen South. Up a small profit. The vagaries of gambling. We start from scratch.
It’s fairly obvious you’re not a member of Alba since you have lots of sleekit digs at AS.
Like further up the thread trying to suggest there were nefarious reasons for AS resignation in 2014.
As I said Eva should have stepped aside for Kenny since she knew he was going to stand in Grangemouth.
So you’ve got that arse about elbow.
Anyway, it makes me doubt your comments as you appear to have an agenda.
I usually scroll past most of your remarks since they’re more like blogs rather than a statement.
Still you believe what you want, I’ll believe what I want.
Andy Ellis @ 6:42 pm
“We’re not a colony, we just lack enough people with the balls to put an X on a piece of paper. That’s not colonialism. that just a lack of moral courage.”
You ignore the fact that “colonization is based on psychology” (Cesaire) which makes the colonized into “a manufactured being” who “craves dependence” (Memmi).
Look at the effect colonization has had on many Scots, wha dinnae want thair ain soveranety or thair ain langage an cultur e’en – yet who remain in their minds ‘prood Scots’!
That even half of Scots now struggle for liberation represents a considerable achievement in view of the negative psychological impacts of colonization in regard to how an oppressed people are ‘made to think’ about themselves:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2024/03/03/the-colonial-mindset/
Mia
Well said on everything.
As for using elections & going through the process of ending the treaty of Union – I agree it’s a complete waste of time because the eejits being elected don’t even know the treaty of union from one end to the other or believe we are Sovereign so how on earth are they expected to remove us from it? They continually think it’s England’s gift to give.
I can’t remember what MSP it was who claimed Scots Sovereignty was *too ambiguous*
A sovereign nation begs no-one for permission or they’re not sovereign at all. I agree, it’s not UDI or everyone would be guilty. In fact we had an ardent Brexiteer confirm to everyone who’d listen that there wasn’t a treaty in the entire world that required a sovereign nation to seek permission from the other side to leave it. Yet #AskAndy still peddles his waffling nonsense. & About the international community – that same community who is complicit in crimes against humanity & can’t quite seem to make up their minds if mass murder by an invader is against the law or not. The yanks are trying to change it to the colonial trick of making a *rules based order* up as they go along depending on who is asking the question.
As for Cherry – well she had ten years in the SNP & didn’t use her status & knowledge of the law to benefit Scotland in any way shape or form. There was nothing stopping her, other than her own position & title of course. She could’ve took them to town over Brexit but chose not to do that either or seek legal opinion. Instead it was Neale Harvey doing the dirty work while Cherry remained delusional she’d stick with the SNP & the sinking ship the rest of us saw coming yrs ago.
Ultra House Jock and well know Union Jack suit man Ian Murray, has been appointed Labour’s Secretary for State AGAINST Scotland.
The SNP get their arses kicked in the last Scottish constituency to declare.
“The Liberal Democrats have defeated the SNP in the final UK constituency to be declared in the General Election results.
The count in at the Dingwall Count Centre near Inverness finished just moments ago. Angus MacDonald, Scottish Liberal Democrats Highland councillor, has been announced as the new MP.”
Ok, so 50% want freedom, 50% are colonised, and we need our MPs to convene the new parliament – stumbling block right there, and worse now that true yoon parties are now voted in, over the previous faux Indy SNP. How do we break this impasse and move forward from here. I sincerely hope that Salvo is the answer, or at least the key to the door. One thing is for sure, the answer is not SNP.
Popped over to a couple of other sites with BTL. You’ll know who they are…
The SNP apologists that bide there have absolutely no sense of humour.
They moan about the electoral system and how unfair it is to get 30% of the vote and only 15% of the seats. They don’t seem to recognise their own hypocrisy when you point out in 2017 that the SNP got 95% of the seats on 50% of the vote and not one of them complained. (God forbid you also point out that despite the 56/59 seats, plus 50% of the popular vote and nearly 2/3 voting Remain, Sturgeon’s ‘Stop Brexit’ campaign achieved precisely f*** all in terms of Standing Up for Scotland).
They also cry “Britnat” when you point out that in 7 years, under the living then dead hand of Sturgeon, the SNP went from 56/59 to just 9/57, with 7 of the 9 being marginals.
They really don’t like it when you point out that opinion polls show support for Indy holding at 47%, yet support for the SNP has dropped to 30%.
Yet these facts are chiels that winna ding and all under the control of Sturgeon and her cosen continuity clown-fest which followed.
There’s even a one legged man in an arse kicking contest trying to debate with himself whether “Salmond sleaze” was worse than “Sturgeon sleaze”. I mean, FFS, denial doesn’t even come close!
All I’ve managed to learn from these other sites is that if I wasn’t previously convinced that the SNP was beyond saving, I am now.
@Logorrhea Mia 7.53pm
I’ll number these because your min blogs are so interminable and you never use 1 word where 10 will do.
1) It can revert to the status of a sovereign state at any time of its choosing. The only thing it needs is to force its self-serving MPs to reconvene Scotland’s old parliament and to legitimately revoke the treaty and Act of Union with England, to which Scotland is perfectly entitled to do legitimately.
You asserting this and it being true are 2 very different things. There is zero evidence this would work, or be internationally recognised. You have no academic, legal or political back up to support this, either from this country or abroad. The UN wouldn’t accept this route: it’s quite simple. You’re talking out of your hat.
2) In fact, if you had traveled all over Europe, you will realise the Scottish people are seen as a people all over Europe. You are very disingenuously (and unsuccessfully) attempting to make things look far more difficult than they really are.
There aren’t many countries in Europe I haven’t visited on business, many I’ve visited on holiday and I’ve done business in lots of them, as well as in Asia, the middle East, Canada and America.
Actually lots of them routinely refer to England when they mean the UK. Their knowledge of Scots history, culture and politics is often pretty superficial which is hardly all that surprising: how much do most of us know about most foreign countries?
Some of them know Scotland has it’s own football team, but even f they know we have devolution, they’re pretty sketchy about any detail. The most knowledgable folks about our situation are in my experience our Nordic neighbours. Most of them are astonished that we’ve stayed in the union this long, and slightly scornful of our cowardice if they’re honest.
Seeing Scots as a people doesn’t mean they or their governments will leap to our defence or recognise a declaration of independence which is disputed or not clearly based on a majority vote. It didn’t work for the Catalans and it won’t work for us.
3) All what was needed, and all what is needed today, is a majority of anti-union MPs with the balls to actually end the treaty and end the union. That is all.
That is also all what the Checks and the Slovaks needed to end their union as “Czechoslovakia”.
Czechia and Slovakia were in a Federation. Their respective parliaments voted for the split in the “Velvet Divorce”. The 2 situations are not alike: the Czechs demanded either a closer union because they didn’t want to continue subsidising the Slovaks or two independent states, whereas the Slovaks wanted a looser Confederation. There was no huge popular demand for the dissolution of the Federation in either state, indeed many wanted it to continue.
In a September 1992 opinion poll, only 37% of Slovaks and 36% of Czechs favoured dissolution. President Havel resigned rather than oversee the dissolution of the Federation.
A majority of MPs would only be enough if they represented a majority of voters and they had a clearly plebiscitary mandate. We had 56 of 59 MPs in 2015 on just less than 50% of the vote, which was in any case not plebiscitary.
Nobody sane believes that would have been accepted as sufficient for independence either by Westminster or the UN. You and other “cunning plans for indy” types constantly asserting it doesn’t make it any more true.
You’re just not very good at this Mia. Verbosity can’t hide the shortcomings in your reasoning and your tendency assert fringe nutter opinions as truth.
Murray is Starmers pet poodle, sent to report on the colonial outpost. “Yes master, can I link your boots master, am I a good licker master?”
I could not take my eyes off the Swiss manager’s hair. The whole game… not a single hair moved.
Have aliens taken over the earth?
Alyn Smith always looked like 10kg of shite pushed into a 5kg bag.
That is my only criticism, the bag is not bursting enough.
“It’s fairly obvious you’re not a member of Alba since you have lots of sleekit digs at AS”
Just this comment alone makes me think you are not an Alba member either and instead you are here pretending to be one while trying to deliberately create confrontation, derail this thread and present Alba supporters as unreasonable idiots.
For the record, I have never made any “sleekit dig” at Mr Salmond. I have always had the utmost respect for the man. The “nefarious reasons” which have crossed my mind as to why he might have resigned is that the man might have been “encouraged” if not coerced by the powers that be to resign and that he did not do that on his own accord.
This is not an unreasonable thought considering how the establishment colluded to evict him from Westminster and how they attempted to finish him politically by manufacturing the criminal case. Yet, despite the ruling in his favour, the establishment, including the crown office, have bent backwards and forwards ever since to protect the political fraud Sturgeon and the perjurer alphabettes and to silence him during the Fabiani’s farce.
The man managed to fuel support for independence from 23 to over 50% in the less than 2 years. That is a remarkable achievement and cannot be seen under any perspective as a defeat. By comparison, Swinney should be by know finding a hole to hide in given the scale of the defeat he presided.
Mr Salmond resigned the leadership leaving a political party on course to win the mother of all landslides and on the verge of achieving a majority of pro-independence vote. This was known already in October 2014. There were several polls already predicting it. It took the political fraud Sturgeon just a couple of months to defang that political party rendering it toothless and useless.
The other “nefarious thought” that crossed my mind is that the powers that be might have already known as early as the week when it was announced that yes was ahead that the SNP would be on course for a landslide if they rigged the referendum with the vow. That is in my view why the resignation of Mr Salmond might have been seen as a priority by the establishment. Mr Salmond would have lead us to independence in two years should he had been left in control of that mother of all majorities at Westminster.
I challenge you to demonstrate that my “nefarious thoughts” are out of place.
On the other matter, and as a voter, I saw Ms Comrie being the first publicly declaring an interest to stand in the constituency. I am not interested in the internal shenanigans of the party. I am only interested in what I see as a voter and which can therefore influence my vote. If the party stood for unity for independence as they claimed to do, they should stood their candidate down and put the very valuable Mr McKaskill in another constituency where he could have got the credit he deserved and the full benefit of the pro-independence vote rather than simply a fraction of it.
“It makes me doubt your comments as you appear to have an agenda”
Please, let me dissipate any doubt you might had in that regard: I DO indeed have an agenda. I seek the revocation of the treaty and act of union with England and the reverting of Scotland to its former status of sovereign state. I seek full recognition and exercise of Scotland’s popular sovereignty and I seek MSPs and Scotland’s MPs swearing allegiance to the people of Scotland rather than to a monarch. I seek a mechanism for MSPs to be evicted from Holyrood by the people of Scotland for corruption or simply for disregarding the democratic mandates endorsed by the Scottish people. I seek that unelected representative from the crown to be evicted as soon as possible from the middle of our executive power and that power is reverted from the current crown to the Scottish people, where it belongs. I seek a mechanism for the people of Scotland to exercise their sovereignty by overruling the government, MSPs and MPs when they choose to go rogue and pursue their own interests and pet causes rather than those of the people of Scotland. I also seek a mechanism to stop a rogue government using public funds to buy off quangos so as to fool the public into believing it is genuinely seeking independent opinion from reputable organisations rather than its own apparatchiks and associates.
“I usually scroll past most of your remarks since they’re more like blogs rather than a statement”
Please continue to do so.
Still you believe what you want, I’ll believe what I want.
Was it ever any other way?
Murray will be as welcome as a good dose of the shits.
He should never have been offered that position after his infamous tantrum & public resignation with the last position his imperial masters gave him under Corbyn.
A right wing nut job who despises Scots, devolution & pesky Scots expecting democracy. He’ll be salivating as we speak lacing his jackboots. As Jack would say PRRRRRRICK! Lol
Are people serious when they talk about reconvening the Scottish Parliament? They think MPs are going to do this? Then they’re going to send a delegation to Europe and …
“You’re obviously some sort of unionist agent if you don’t believe we can do it…”
Read my lips: it’s pure fantasy.
Now please stop putting otherwise respectable people in a position whereby they are forced to agree with Ellis. No good can come of this.
There’s nothing in those old transcripts and documents that will change a thing. We need majority support for independence and a legitimate way of expressing it through the ballot box. That’s all.
Now cut out the davinci code bullshit ffs.
“The UN wouldn’t accept this route: it’s quite simple”
Let me use back at you your very own words in response: ‘You asserting this and it being true are 2 very different things’
“Actually lots of them routinely refer to England when they mean the UK”
Yes, but they recognise very well that the Scottish people and the English people are different, which is the precise point of recognising that the scots are a people. There is no need for them to know the history, or how much devolution Scotland has. They recognise the Scots are a people. I do not know much about the history of China or Korea, but I do know that Chinese and Koreans are two different groups of people.
“Seeing Scots as a people doesn’t mean they or their governments will leap to our defence”
It does not mean they will go against us either.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for any country in the world to deny Scotland its status of sovereign state after it has unilaterally revoked an international treaty exercising its perfectly legitimate right to do so.
” It didn’t work for the Catalans and it won’t work for us”
And here you go again. The situation of Catalonia and Scotland is different. Like black and white. It has been pointed out to you time and time again. Catalonia does not have a treaty of union with the rest of the regions of Spain.
“Czechia and Slovakia were in a Federation”
And? It is a type of union all the same.
“Their respective parliaments voted for the split in the “Velvet Divorce”
There you go. It was the parliamentarians who voted and not the people.
“The 2 situations are not alike”
Look very much the same to me. The only difference is that the Czech and Slovakian MPs had a backbone that used to dissolve their union. Scotland’s MPs only had backbones to collect salaries and profit from the subsidised bars.
“A majority of MPs would only be enough if they represented a majority of voters”
Nope. I advise you to read history and the memoirs of the first MPs and Peers that Scotland sent to Westminster. You will see very clearly there that the majority of voters was never needed for anything to do with the union. It was only a majority of parliamentarians.
“Nobody sane believes that would have been accepted as sufficient for independence either by Westminster or the UN”
Sorry. Using hyperbole does not make your flawed argument any more credible.
“You and other “cunning plans for indy” types constantly asserting it doesn’t make it any more true”
You constantly asserting it will not work or that nobody supports it when you can only speak for yourself and do not present evidence to support your assertion, does not make it less true or less credible.
“Verbosity can’t hide the shortcomings in your reasoning and your tendency assert fringe nutter opinions as truth”
So why do you insist in using verbosity to hide the shortcomings of your own reasoning and your continuous tendency to disregard as fringe nutter options the educated views of others you disagree with but are completely unable to present evidenced arguments to go against?
You do not present any evidence to support your assertions. You simply say that something will not be accepted by this or the other but you never present the evidence that this would be the case. If that is not verbosity trying to hide shortcomings, what is.
“Are people serious when they talk about reconvening the Scottish Parliament?”
Yes
“They think MPs are going to do this?”
Not the current load. We need candidates standing on a abstentionist manifesto.
“it’s pure fantasy”
No it isn’t.
“There’s nothing in those old transcripts and documents that will change a thing”
Have you read them all? Those old transcripts and documents give a much more realistic view of what the union was conceived to be than the present distorted interpretation. They also give a much better idea of the mechanisms the contemporaries of the union saw as valid to end the union they themselves had created.
“We need majority support for independence”
No, we don’t. The only thing we need is a majority of parliamentarians with the will to reconvene Scotland’s parliament and revoke the treaty of union. That is all what it was ever needed.
As it is, what is considered a majority for independence and under which franchise? The majority of Scots natives already voted for independence in 2014.
” a legitimate way of expressing it through the ballot box”
The GE2015, GE2017 and GE2019 were perfectly legitimate ways to elect a majority of anti-union MPs.
For the last 10 years we have been denied the opportunity to choose the option of ending the union in a ballot paper. I am sorry to say, but the idea that “a legitimate way” for a majority to express their support to end the union is ever going to be made available to us while remaining in this union is the real davinci code bullshit.
Hatuey
In the real world there’s such a thing as what’s called a ‘treaty’. These are internationally agreed terms between countries. A contract if you like. These can, and sometimes are, revoked for all manner of reasons. One of the most common is a breach of contract.
It is perfectly legal to do so. Scotland does not require Westminster’s permission. A section 30. A 70% polling over X amount of years. The international communities blessing, the EUs blessing. A begging bowl or a prayer to the Gods.
It’s a sovereign nation. It can do what the fck it pleases.
It is then for both sides to negotiate new terms. Then put that to the electorate in a referendum.
It’s not Alba or the SNP to make up excuse after excuse of why this hasn’t been done. They still try sell us the snake oil, that even after a successful election , various mandates & now a plebiscite election, their aim is try to appeal to the English if it’s terribly alright with them if we left, please & thank you.
We already know that answer eh? England will simply refuse to comply & hand over what legally belongs to Scotland.
THAT is where someone can stand up & tear the treaty to shreds. They have fck all authority over Scots, her territory or her rights to hold a referendum. A sovereign nation can ask it’s own population whatever the fck it likes.
Instead we have eejits say ‘Oh, OK, Master. Sorry fir asking, Master. Can I give you more of Scotland, master?’ bullshit we have via so called ‘politicians’
And not every country has had a referendum to end their union. It’s pure fantasy & imagined crap by the usual spoilers forever trying to put obstacles in Scotlands way to an exit.
#AskAndy has a fecking flea in his bonnet about ordinary Scots doing it for themselves & EXACTLY how Devolution was delivered yet he spouts absolute horseshit ‘He sees no evidence that’d work’
He’s a faker. He couldn’t be anymore Britnats if he tried.
“Murray will be as welcome as a good dose of the shits”
hahahaha!!!
Norway started the process of independence from Sweden by setting up foreign embassiies(consulates). An act which was perceived to be illegal under the terms of the Union. This paved the way for negotiations on a plebiscite. Norway had already set one up, anticipating Sweden would demand one.
Unlike ours. The Norwegians voted 99% to dissolve the Union. Bearing in mind Norway had never been an independent nation. This is quite incredible.
Which brings us back to how messed up the Scots are. That we could only muster 52% from people born in Scotland.
I am discounting the 10% of non Scots ( mainly English). Because Norway didn’t have such an issue with Swedish settlers.
I think the issue for us is not necessarily identity. We know from the census 65% of our population identify as Scottish,and not British. But Sweden and Norway never amalgamated their name into one State. It was always Sweden and Norway.
The Norwegians always identified as Norwegians. There was no dual nationality to invent a new nationality to attach to.
I think Scots are a very timid bunch when it comes to being assertive. And there is the 300 years of brainwashing , that we are nothing without England.
Uniquely we voted against our own existence. I mean as a populace, not native Scots. But why isn’t independence support at 90%? Who wouldn’t want to be independent. It’s a state of psychological illness.
“The UN wouldn’t accept this route: it’s quite simple”
Ellis was told before to go listen to actual international lawyers discuss & present the case to the ICJ regarding the state of Palestine. They were very clear. IT IS NOT UP TO THE INVADER TO SET CONDITIONS over a people. THEY HAVE FCK ALL AUTHORITY TO DO SO under international law. It is also ILLEGAL to impose restrictions, hoops to jump through or even accounts on how they will sustain themselves without their great overlords once they leave.
#AskAndy knows feck all about what the UN will or won’t accept. He makes up shit on a daily basis to complicate & distract Scotland from becoming an independent country once again.
No wonder Alba is tanking with that eejit onboard.
Excellent cartoon Chris. It looks like the Highland Express. Scottish Airways. Air Scotland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Express_Airways
Scotland once had it’s own Boeing 747 aircraft.
We’ve got our own Airport in public hands. Our profit making airport. It’s time for ScotAIR. Alba Airways.
I want to see Scotland take to the skies again. If anyone in the Alba Party reads this. I want to see Alba Airways.
Does anyone know anything about buying planes? Could the highland express be something that could be created? I’d love to see it.
Mia 6 July, 2024 at 11:25 pm
“the Czech and Slovakian MPs had a backbone that used to dissolve their union.”
To be similar to your situation you have to get both sides to agree to dissolve. In other words England’s MPs and Scotland’s MPs.
There was no equivalent of the Scottish Parliament.
Breastplate
6 July, 2024 at 1:16 pm
“Without Salmond there would have been no independence referendum as Sturgeon has shown. You can believe otherwise if you wish.”
Well said, and a point that Salmond haters conveniently ignore.
Salmond revived the SNP and the independence movement and achieved what no Scot had achieved in 300 years – a genuine choice on independence.
He also gave the best governance since devolution which made the SNP respectable.
What he has done wrong IMHO is he has been too “polite” to the SNP in the aftermath of the conspiracy to put him in jail.
ALBA would have been a great success if he had ruthlessly exposed the carpetbaggers in the SNP preventing independence for their own selfish careers.
I still hope that he will go on the attack long before the next Scottish election.
Mia
“We need majority support for independence”
No, we don’t. The only thing we need is a majority of parliamentarians with the will to reconvene Scotland’s parliament and revoke the treaty of union. That is all what it was ever needed.
As it is, what is considered a majority for independence and under which franchise? The majority of Scots natives already voted for independence in 2014.”
That is absolutely spot on.
Even ultra unionist, Thatcher, agreed that was all that was required to end the union.
No ref required.
No sec 30 required.
No white paper required.
No set of accounts to furnish.
No plan required.
All invented crap by Unionists.
Just a simple majority of elected Scottish MPs was instruction enough to end the union & no English MP could or would ever stand in their way. She confirmed this herself. So did Major, so did Blair. It has only been since 2014 that they’ve invented new ways to keep Scotland by spreading fake news & fictitious rules. Same with the One Nation pish from BoJo. We’ve never been on nation & Scots territory remains intact.
That quickly changed under Mayhem once they nearly lost the referendum to somehow we need all manner of tricks & not just from England but from the UN, The EU, The wider international community, the tooth fairy, Santa Clause & all of his elves, next doors cat & all the angels & saints..
What the fck? LOL. Absolute invented horseshit.
The moment SNP turned up with a majority at Westminster they could have ended the union right there & then. Not only over the absolute farce of the Smith commission giving us zero for the No vote but for the Brexit vote only one year later & Scots being excluded from the Brexit negotiations.
They chose not to do so despite a triple mandate that year. GE2015, Holyrood 2016 & Brexit 62% vote.
Sadly Salmond was part of the class of 56 & as an old timer he knew exactly what this meant. It was also, lest we forget, SNP party policy to immediately leave the UK if they ever won a majority. He’ll have to answer to himself at least of why he didn’t do it. He had the chance but he took his seat instead.
The sort of hollow crap that everybody is sick of: “It’s a sovereign nation. It can do what the fck it pleases.”
Where do you start with people that talk like that?
Fucked if I know.
Hatuey
Yer right. You don’t know.
It’s documented FACT that Scotland only requires a majority of elected MPs to start immediate withdrawal from the Union.
This was also the SNP party constitution. A majority of elected reps to the mother of all parliaments was the ONLY requirement to start immediate withdrawal.
Thatcher & various other yoons that Neale Harvey read out in parliament also agreed this was all that was required.
But you, some random off the internet, thinks we should now have an election, then a referendum, then another referendum just to be doubly sure about it, Oh… & that internationally recognised treaties are just pish documents no cunt bothers with these days. Same as borders. Scrap them all… they’re all irrelevant.
Away & sit doon eh?
Hatuey
Don’t worry yer pretty wee head. The ballot box is still involved. A majority of elected Scottish MPs would have already been the process.
No referendum required.
& A Sovereign Nation can ask it’s own population what the feck it likes on any subject & however many times it pleases without hindrance, restrictions or timescales.
It doesn’t require the permission of a foreign government, a foreign monarch, a foreign community or endless democratic events before yer satisfied.
If you think it does then yer beyond help. Keep voting SNP. They now share the same delusions.
“To be similar to your situation you have to get both sides to agree to dissolve”
Actually no. You are digressing from the point. The point of the dissolution of Czechoslovakia was that it never needed a referendum or a majority of the population voting for the end of that union as Andy Ellis has been claimed it is needed for Scotland to end the Kingdom of Great Britain union. It was simply parliamentarians who did it. The population was never consulted.
The same applies to Scotland. It only requires a majority OF ITS OWN MPS to reconvene the old parliament and revoke the treaty. This was acknowledged by the Scottish peers contemporary to the start of the union.
The difference with Czechoslovakia is that Scotland and England are united by a treaty which can be unilaterally revoked under international law by each of them. There is no need for both to be in agreement. Just one wanting out of the treaty is sufficient.
Confused 2:47
“It’s a celebration of perversity” that’s one way of putting it LOL
“The Samoa Agreement, named after the Pacific Island, Samoa, where it was signed on November 15, 2023, is a celebration of perversity. Certain Articles of the Agreement especially Articles 2.5 and 29.5 legalise LGBT, transgenderism, abortion, teen sexual abuse, and perversity in African countries.”
“Not infrequently, Nigerian officials in Geneva, New York, and other places sign international agreements or treaties over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with little or no knowledge of their contents,” Ekwowusi said.
The problem we all seem to have. No one seems to ever read or have further information on wtf they’re signing up to. Never mind tho – according to Hatuey international treaties are meaningless these days.
I’ll now go to bed chuckling that some Tranny oligarchs small print has been brought to light by those fcking Africans who are not supposed to do those advanced things like read LMAO!
https://newtelegraphng.com/lgbt-nigerians-react-as-fg-signs-150bn-samoa-deal/
@ Chris Cairns what a fantastic depiction of the despicable situation the Scum Nonce Party have forced on Scotland and Scots
Electronic engineer here – it sounds like you’re describing something called UVB-76 which is often called “The buzzer” in the west. Much like the SNP nobody knows what it’s for, there are only theories. Then again you might be describing the Duga OTH radar system? That thingie was shut down at the same time as communism, though really it should have been shut down long before because it was a shite system which caused all sorts of interference to aviation, maritime, broadcast and commercial RF comms all over the world. The two enormous antenna arrays are still there though…worth a look if you’re ever in that part of the world 🙂
To understand how the union treaty can be ended by Scotland without England’s permission, you just need to grasp the nature of it.
If France signed a treaty with Germany, agreeing to buy 50% of Germany’s wine output for ‘all time coming’, but then decided that actually German wine just isn’t that good, really, they could end the treaty. It is just a contract. Of course, Germany could easily then say, that’s not fair, you must financially compensate us for all our losses etc.. And so it would go. But ,the key point is, the treaty could be ended by either party, whenever they chose.
If Germany kept France happy with good quality wine, then France would likely never want to end the treaty. They would say, well, this is good for France, so let’s make sure we keep the treaty with Germany. If England did not abuse Scotland, Scottish interests, denigrate our culture, steal our natural assets, like oil, impose butcher’s aprons everywhere, and soon, under Labour, all our power (under the guise of a pretendy entity called ‘gb energy’), then Scots would not demand independence. If the union with England was not wholly undemocratic and unwanted by Scots, if England truly respected Scotland as an equal and equivalent partner, then the issue of ending the treaty would never arise.
Thus it also is with the unwanted undemocratic ‘union‘ treaty which Scotland has with England. Their really, really is no magic special power about it. It really is just a treaty agreement. It does not and never did give England absolute say so over Scotland and what it wants.
I just wish more Scottish politicians would start talking about that. As things stand, most Scots still really do believe that unlike ANY other treaty anywhere in the world, the ‘union‘ treaty with England has a special magic power, whereby England gets to decide what Scotland does or doesn’t do. It is a long established myth perpetuated by England and their sycophantic accolytes (red and blue tories) up in Scotland.
When Scotland decides to end the union, England has no say in the matter. Oh, they will wail and cry foul, and assert there is a ‘constitutional crisis’, and that it is ‘illegal’ etc.. etc.. and so on, but its bollocks. it is exactly the same kind of nonsense and bluster they used for every colony around the world that demanded an end to English abuse and colonial rule.
In short, Scotland does NOT need England’s permission to end the union‘ treaty with England, and never has.
Sadly, England just treats Scots and Scotland like sh*t, and that is why the treaty needs ended.
https://www.centreonconstitutionalchange.ac.uk/news-and-opinion/scottish-independence-and-uk-governments-unreasonable-refusal-negotiate
@sam 7.53 am
I think Sionaidh Douglas-Scott is right that consent, change of circumstances and the requirement to negotiate in good faith could prove to be important additional arguments in use against British nationalist intransigence.
Not also however her comment:
Of course, all that follows must be supported by evidence that the Scottish people wishes to exercise its right to self-determination and leave the Union. If this were not so, then the Scottish Government would itself be violating the principle of democracy. The clearest way to demonstrate whether such a wish existed would be by a referendum on independence, which is why referendums have been the focus of so much discussion to date. But the existence of such a desire could be determined in other ways, such as at a General Election.
It is overwhelmingly likely that the solution to any dispute will be political rather than legal. Those who insist – against all available evidence – that political means are unimportant or won’t be used in our case are pinning their hopes on legal decisions going there way, of which there is no guarantee.
Robert. England tried to create a false identity and nation called Britain, the nationality being British. Thus reducing Scotland to a region of the invented nation of Britain.
In the world Britain and England are the same country, especially the US. I watched a clip of Geoff Capes at the Olympics in Los Angeles. The caption said Geoff Capes (England). So I would assume it would have been Alan Wells ( England).
Look at all the fuss about Andy Murray the Brit Tennis player. England have claimed him as their property. He had to give up being Scottish to win them over.
My point is that so many Scots bought into the false construct of Britain. How often do people say ‘ This country’ When they mean the UK.
So in the minds of some people the UK is seen as a country. Legally it isn’t. Its a state of nations. Black people who settle in England always call themselves British. Mainly because they are not familiar or comfortable with English identity. But really they are English first and foremost. The modern identity British has no natural cultural history. So those of us with Scottish history don’t identify as British. Except for those Scots who do so for bigoted reasons, and we know who they are.
We need to assert that Scotland is and always has been a nation. So leaving the
UK is simply a nation deciding it doesn’t want to be in a political Union with England.
A deeply depressing sense of the “same old, same old” coming from the BTL comments.
The readable ones at any rate – that lets you off the hook Mia.
Here’s a wee question. Two years ago, were much the same posts being posted, rehashing much the same arguments, generating much the same heat, and shining much the same absence of light?
(OK, four questions.)
Because if the answers are yes, what’s the chances any of this will be “settled” in time for the next democratic mandate of the Scottish voters, in May 2026?
I know it’s going to be a lot of fun, endlessly slagging each other off for the next 2 years, but seriously folks, Indy needs a bit more than that.
Think about it. Where were Reform two years ago? Two years in politics is an age.
But you do actually have to get out of your comfort zones and get the something going.
@ Andy Ellis
The article says: “Of course, all that follows must be supported by evidence that the Scottish people wishes to exercise its right to self-determination and leave the Union”
This wish to exercise its right to self-determination was demonstrated in 2014 – the majority of the natives voted yes
This was demonstrated in 2015 – Scotland sent an absolute majority of anti-union (or what we thought were anti-union) MPs to Westminster accompanied by a majority of pro-independence vote
This was demonstrated in 2016 – Scotland delivered a pro-independence majority to HOlyrood on a mandate to hold an independence referendum should there be a change of circumstances like Scotland being forced out of the EU against its democratic will
This was demonstrated in 2017 – Scotland sent another absolute majority of anti-union MPs to Westminster
This was demonstrated in 2019 – Scotland sent another absolute majority of anti-union MPs to Westminster on a mandate for Scotland to have a choice over its future
This was demonstrated in 2021 – Scotland sent a pro-independence majority to HOlyrood on yet another mandate to hold a referendum.
This was demonstrated once again in 2024 – pro-independence voters found a way to remove the useless SNP from their seats after showing the uttermost contempt for the pro-independence voters by openly becoming a devolutionist, undemocratic party which refused to enact the many mandates the people of Scotland had given them for the last 10 years.
By the time that article was written, Scotland had already, politically, expressed its desire for independence many, many times. In addition to that, support for independence has been hoovering around 50% for a very long time.
Yet, Scotland’s MPs and MSPs have been deliberately ignoring those democratic mandates and, therefore, to borrow the words of the article, they have been consistently and deliberately “violating the principle of democracy”. NOt just that, mind. They have been violating the Claim of Right, and indirectly the ToU, because by denying Scotland its democratic mandates, they have been colluding with the powers that be to impose on Scotland absolute rule.
Every single one of our MPs and MSPs, bar a handful, have been guilty of that because every single one of them colluded to deny the people of Scotland the opportunity to exercise its preferred choice.
That article also says: “The clearest way to demonstrate whether such a wish existed would be by a referendum on independence”
In an ideal world, absolutely. But the UK does not fit that description. In 2014 and for the following 10 years we have had countless opportunities to witness first hand how a fair independence referendum will never materialise for Scotland.
Any referendum that will take place will be rigged by continuous intrusion from our partner under the guise of “UK government” or the crown abusing their control over the police, electoral commission, secret service, civil service, public services, the crown office, the broadcasters, the press at large, England parties or Uk parliament”, or the courts.
Besides all that, the referendum will be rigged by imposing a franchise which will ensure the right of Scotland’s natives to self-determine is frustrated by the desire of se…ers to transform Scotland into the backyard of England.
We have already experienced all that.
For as long as democracy is denied to the people of Scotland as it has been denied, non-stop, for at least the last 10 years and possibly longer, “ideal world scenarios” are nothing but unrealistic wishful thinking and pie in the sky. You cannot demand a democratic result when democracy is systematically being denied to you in the first place. Insisting in doing so can only be construed as either ignorance of the circumstances, an attempt to disinformation or simply telling the Scottish people you think they are stupid and therefore will continue to fall time and time again in the same trap.
In such circumstances you have to start looking at the alternatives available to you. The treaty of union between Scotland and England is a contract that is subjected to a series of fundamental conditions, many of them have been consistently violated, some of them more than once, and continue to be, for the last 300 years.
It is only because Scotland is represented by useless, self-serving cowards that this abuse is allowed to continue unchallenged. It is therefore incumbent on as as a people to resource to the nuclear option: to find a mechanism to overrule/revoke/invalidate that treaty and to find a route to bypass the so called “representatives” who insist in turn a blind eye to the violations of that treaty for the sake of preserving their own privileges.
“But the existence of such a desire could be determined in other ways, such as at a General Election”
That desire has already been determined in three consecutive general elections: 2015, 2017 and 2019. Because of the deliberate denial from the SNP to act on it for the best part of 10 years and therefore they becoming the biggest obstacle to Scotland’s independence, the last GE also demonstrated the desire for independence by pro-independenced voters joining in to remove the main obstacle to independence from Westminster.
But all this is leading us to down yet another disinforming path. There never was, there is not and there never will be a need for Scotland to demonstrate its desire for independence. That is another fabricated obstacle put in front of Scotland’s right to self-determination. Legally, there never was a desire for Scotland to join the union in the first place, so it is rather ridiculous to now fabricated obstacles that were never there in the first place when Scotland was forced into the union.
The memoirs of the contemporaries to the creation of the union are clear. All what is needed to end the union is for representatives of the three estates to reconvene Scotland’s old parliament and to revoke the treaty of union and act of union with England. That is all.
Demonstration of Scotland wanting independence is desirable, but not needed, in the same way that Scotland demonstrating a desired for brexit was never needed for our representatives to collude with England’s counterparts to remove Scotland from the EU against our expressed democratic will. They did so by refusing to stop it by invoking the Claim of Right and the direct violation of the treaty of union and popular sovereignty that the imposition of brexit on Scotland against its will constituted.
For as long as our politicians continue to swear allegiance to a monarch rather than to their country, for as long as they continue to violate Scotland’s popular sovereignty and Claim of Right for the sake of keeping that monarch happy, and for as long as they continue to put their own interests ahead than those of the people they are meant to be representing, the political route is completely useless. It is an illusion. It is a con.
“It is overwhelmingly likely that the solution to any dispute will be political rather than legal”
On the contrary. 10 years of failure to reach a solution by political means because political parties have been deliberately obstructing the exercise of Scotland’s self-determination has put the political under more scrutiny than ever. More and more people are realising they are nothing but charlatans working for just about everybody else other than the people of Scotland.
When the trust in politics is gone, and we are very close to reach critical mass on that point, it becomes far more likely that Scotland’s independence will be achieved DESPITE politics, not thanks to it. When the political route has become useless in the eyes of the people, what it is likely to happen is that the people of Scotland will bypass politics and find a mechanism to either invalidating or revoking that treaty under international law. This will be done through a grassroots movement. Actually, this is already under way.
“Those who insist – against all available evidence – that political means are unimportant or won’t be used in our case are pinning their hopes on legal decisions going there way, of which there is no guarantee”
10 years of deliberate frustration of the expressed democratic will of the people of Scotland by political parties, 10 years of deliberately denying the people of Scotland the option in the ballot they want constitutes evidence beyond any reasonable doubt that political means have become completely irrelevant to achieving independence, therefore you are wrong.
There might not be guarantees with the legal route leading to an international court, but at least there is hope that it will be successful. There is no hope left for politics when we have been demonstrated time and time again for the last 10 years that the politics of this union leads to nothing other than the ransacking of Scotland’s assets, the plundering of Scotland’s demographic, the transforming of Scotland’s natives as foreigners in their own land and the of the continuous and unlawful transfer of control over executive and legislative powers from the hands of the people of Scotland to the unelected crown.
Your words and those of that article would have inspired hope and confidence at some point in 2014. But not anymore. You cannot hide the last 10 years of deliberate frustration of Scotland’s democratic will by the con of UK politics.
Some questions ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election;
1. Will the SNP change their rules so Stephen Flynn can stand for Holyrood without resigning his Westminster seat?
2. Will Nicola Sturgeon still be an SNP msp at the time of the next Holyrood election, or will she have resigned or be sitting as an independent?
I won’t link it, because it’s not worth the bother, but just to note Sturgeon’s “pal” DANI GARAVELLI has written a hatchet piece on Sturgeon in the Herald. The words “Ha! Ha! Ha!” spring to mind.
Turncoats aplenty, no surprises there, but I’d trade them all in for a semi-decent whistle blower on the Vietnam Conspiracy; something juicy that starts putting these rats behind bars, and for things much worse than sticky fingers.
Swinney’s no Winston Wolfe, though he likes to think he is.
Tick tock.
@ Mia… Working today, but I’ll try a fuller reply later, but just to say, if there was a killer punch for the ToU, then perfect, lets do it. But metaphorically speaking, I’d be starting fires everywhere.
I’d attack the Union in 1707, I’d attack it’s constitutional legitimacy, I’d attack the integrity and legitimacy of bribed representatives entering ultra vires Treaties with Enemy Nations poised to invade. I’d attack it in 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th and 21st Century. No act of subjugation or unconstitutional misappropriation would be left out.
I’d attack the Treaty of Union’s faux legitimacy from every conceivable direction, in every practicable theatre, forum and venue, and NOWHERE should the UK Government be permitted to negotiate with foreign Governments without a barrage of criticism and disruption from Constitutional activists serving injunctions on proceedings in the name of Scottish Constitutional Law.
Be confident in our skins and uncompromising. Put the Westminster Unionists on the defensive as they are required to validate the Constitutional legitimacy they do not possess.
If we’d done this, and this alone over Brexit, Michel Barnier could not have lawfully concluded the Brexit Agreement.
If some of these “attacks” failed, then so be it. But we remain indefatigable. The condemnations keep coming until the Union cracks. We need only kill the Treaty itself once and it is done; it ceases to exist.
@Geri 2:54
High up on the perversity scale is the removal by bladed implements of intimate body parts from little girls.
For “cultural” reasons.
Being done in this country too, despite being illegal, with a blind eye being turned in the interests of “community cohesiveness”.
I think the continual focus on the practices of some minorities, the trannies in your case, while the practices of other minorities are effectively ignored, is telling.
Maybe we could agree that if the introduction by white westerners of dubious practices to third world cultures is a bad thing, then so is the introduction of dubious third world practices to here?
General election to Westminster parliament.
A majority of Scottish MPs elected.
Immediate withdrawal.
That’s it. That’s all that was ever required.
Even the SNP had it in their constitution for decades. Even Angus MacNeil endlessly posted to his twitter feed this was all that was required. Same as being booed off stage for his plan B.
It’s absolute roasters that keep making it sound oh so complicated & who will or won’t accept it with tales of fairy stories & made up shite to suit their own agenda.
The legal opinion is so those same fckn roasters can’t then say a majority of Scottish MPs is illegal & start battering old grannies at the ballot box or some other invented crap like percentages. Comprendez?
Oh, & forget Holyrood. That’s a branch office. It’s MPs to the mother of parliaments that count. Our treaty rests there where the seat of power is. Not a glorified council MSPs which would be laughed out of parliament if they tried to claim that had any other relevance than as a confirmation of intent.
It really is that simple.
@ Logorrhea Mia 9.49am
Talking of rehashing old arguments:
Even if it’s true that the majority of native born Scots voted Yes in 2014, that woudln’t have been accepted by either the movement as a whole (which moonhowlers like you thankfully don’t represent) or by the international community, which wouldn’t accept a gerrymandered franchise as a valid expression of the settled will of the Scottish people. Self determination referendums are based on open, inclusive franchises: they don’t pander to xenophobic, nativist bigotry.
Overwhelming numbers of MPs sent to the Westminster parliament signify nothing, because 56 of 59 MPs represented less than 50% of those who voted, and the pro-independence parties hadn’t made the election plebiscitary, so even if we’d won 55% or 60% or 99% nobody internationally would have accepted the result.
If we can’t expect British nationalists to deal with requests for a second referendum in good faith, or to honour the 2012 Edinburgh Agreement precedent, then future referendums are probably pointless. The SNP in particular has been slow to cotton on, as has – arguably – the movement as a whole. That being said (and given the Red Tories flat refusal to countenance any future referendum, particularly given the decrease in SNP MPs at Westminster) we have to find an alternative route to independence.
The only feasible routes are plebiscitary elections (which can’t be denied by British nationalists without it looking decidedly anti-democratic in the eyes of the international community) or some legalistic “cunning plan for indy” route, which bypasses a popular vote or parliament and rests on the assertion that some form of direct democracy, peoples assembly or legal leger de main is more likely to succeed than conventional political means.
The latter can only be seen as a huge long shot. there’s vanishingly little support for the belief that it will either gain the necessary popular support, or be recognised internationally. In addition it has close to zero support in any academic, legal, constitutional or political circles, even amongst neutral experts in those fields abroad who have no skin in the game.
If you and the other moonhowlers had such evidence, you’d be shouting it from the rooftops….but you just don’t because it doesn’t exist.
As someone pointed out above, Reform came from nowhere to where they are now in only 2 years. 500,000 Scots abandoned the SNP a couple of days ago and either voted for the Red Tories or stayed at home.
The only thing stopping Scots voting for independence in 2026 (or even earlier if the SNP had the guts to call early elections in Holyrood) is the lack of political balls amongst enough of the Scottish people. Nativist tomfoolery isn’t going to change that, and will indeed probably have the opposite effect.
OK I’ve got the message talk of gender id not acceptable on Wings.
You’ve lost any chance of independence due to gender id the SNP lost the election due to gender id, Neale Hanvey and Joanna Cherry may have lost due to gender id, Alba??? the Tories also may have lost due to gender id, Reform pulled back on gender id which was strange.
Who knows Labour may have won due to gender id but we don’t talk about any of that on Wings.
It was a topic that was talked about a lot during the election but not here on Wings BTL. Plenty on Wings Twitter. That is very weird!
Fuck sake how many times was Starmer asked what a woman is?
‘Geri the Cock of the Walk’ doesn’t want to talk about women’s rights or what a woman is which makes me suspicious that ‘Geri the Cock of the Walk’ is well named.
OK you don’t want to talk about gender id that’s fine doesn’t mean I won’t be posting about it.
An important message for ‘Geri the Cock of the Walk’
Looking directly at nuclear explosions melts the eyes.
Don’t worry about what folk are talking about just make sure you don’t look.
I read that way back when I ‘self-idied’ as an artist and found the idea of this ‘important message’ worthy of creating some ‘art’.
It was fun being a artist until I decided the ‘world of art’ was totally mental.
I might revert back to being an artist and get all creative here on Wings!
Frankly my dears you need things liven up a bit it’s all getting too SSDD.
You appear to be stuck in the mud!
Thought I would pop on to Wings and see what the fall out was from the GE results. As is usual, I start from the bottom of the comments section and work my way up.
1st comment I see is from the failed novelist Mia. Quickly by passed. Although I sometimes get a fleeting thought of wondering what she writes. Like many I will never know.
Not too long before I stumble upon the likes of Geri, who thinks that he/she/it is the font of all knowledge and anyone who has the temerity to disagree with he/she/it is fair game for abuse.
After this, I glanced outside to see a neighbour painting his fence. The prospect of watching the paint dry proved more appealing than reading any more comments.
I suspect that I missed the Colonialism pish, the 300 year old shite, the Claim of Rights mince, the Sovereignty crap and all the magical routes to Independence. These routes of course only seem logical to those suffering with mental issues. Who needs the majority of Scots to be in agreement with anything when the 2% on here think that they will decide our fate?
For anyone tempted to respond to this post-don’t bother as it will not be read by me.
Have a lovely day all.
“The clearest way to demonstrate whether such a wish existed would be by a referendum on independence”
Whit?!
Haud the front page..
Yer telling me it’s not ..
*Drum roll*
Once in a g-e-n-e-r-ation?!
Well I’ll be darned..lol
Haven’t we voted for one of those like forever? Six times at least counting even council elections.
@Geri 10.11am
Your dead simple solution is also dead wrong.
The “all we need is a majority of seats in Westminster” line just won’t fly. It *might* have worked back in the day before the establishment of Holyrood, but even then the expectation was that any nationalist party which gained the majority of seats (even in the rigged FPTP system) would doubtless represent an overwhelming majority of Scots, much as Sinn Fein came to represent the overwhelming majority of Irish voters in 1918 instead of the IPP.
The convention in modern times is that self determination is exercised via a popular 2 choice referendum. It’s not the only route, but it is almost without exception the route used by all the states that have become independent, particularly former republics of Yugoslavia and the USSR which make up a big proportion of cases in recent decades.
It isn’t complicated, nor is it made up. Your fervid imaginings about Salvo, Conventions of the Estates, MPs meeting to dissolve the union are all unicorns and rainbows stuff. Nobody serious is buying the “cunning plans for indy” snake oil: if they were, we’d see evidence of it.
Instead, all we have is a coterie of nativists, xenophobes and some outright racists polluting the discourse here with their poison, and fluffing for their scantily subscribed blogs, failing crowd funders and repetitive self referential pointing to their hot takes on post colonial theory that no sane Scots accept.
We all know folk like you Geri: totally fixated on solutions that are simple and crushingly wrong.
Thought for the Day
The party’s over, the rainbow farded fops flee, let the people take command and let an implacable, gloves off Scottish nationalism be the force.
Yes to «National Renewal», let Starmer feel the scorch of real change.
‘Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto’
See Ellis I’m just as clever as you I speak latin too.
I’ve done well for a scheemie eh no?
That reminds me I need to get back to my playlists.
Ellis Island is a song by Marc Cohn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0WxVHVJXGg
I stepped out in the damp and misty night
As the fog was rolling in
Man said, “Last boat leaving tonight
Is the boat for Ellis Island”
Reform didn’t come “from nowhere in only 2 yrs”
Ukip has been agitating for over 30 years. BNP & EDL even longer. Noising up the population over immigration & white supremacist shite.
A change of name doesn’t make them a new party. It’s the same dross amalgamated into one.
Couldn’t help but think that the toon was showing Hamish dumping a bag of excrement – which is exactly what the voters have done.
A good dump was certainly needed, log overdue.
Ellis there – we now have a convention for modern times LMAO!
Yer telling me the most archaic parliament in the whole wide world made Scotland special & dragged it up to the 21st century & modernised it’s system just for us?
Away & behave. More made up shite.
A majority of elected Scottish MPs. Bums on seats. Is all that was ever required. Stop making up shite of what you think.
BoJo exited the EU with his oven ready deal that wasn’t oven ready on only 43% of the vote.
We’ve a new PM on 33%
A majority of seats. That’s it. No one made Scotland special.
As Thatcher even said – a majority of Scottish MPs can end the union & NO ONE can stop them from doing so.
A very good example of SSDD is here
https://wingsoverscotland.com/dead-weight/#comment-2874281
It’s ‘The Bonnie Purple Same Shite’ today as it has yesterday’
There must be a song about that.
In the meantime I will post this one for Chastitty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KaWSOlASWc&t=3s
‘Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side’
Cheerio!
@Andy Ellis
With regard to the final paragraph above of tour answer to me, please note.
The 2022 census
“The percentage of people who said Scottish was their only national identity increased since the previous census (from 62.4% to 65.5%). The percentage who said their only national identity was British also increased (from 8.4% to 13.9%). The percentage who said they felt Scottish and British decreased (from 18.3% to 8.2%).”
and
“The issue of sovereignty has never been resolved in Scotland. The 1998 Scotland Act, creating the Scottish Parliament affirmed that the Westminster Parliament is sovereign, but this is disputed. In practice, the issue was left largely in abeyance as sovereignty was seen as an outdated concept. The Scottish independence referendum of 2014 and the UK Brexit referendum of 2016 both brought back the question of sovereignty in stark terms. Analysis of data from the British Election Study of 2019 with regard to (a) the right of Scottish self-determination, and (b) the right of a UK-wide majority to take Scotland out of the EU, allows us to identify ‘sovereigntists’ and ‘unionists’. Sovereigntists, on both dimensions, now constitute a majority. A smaller group of unionists reject both positions.
There remains a group of ‘semi-sovereigntists’ who accept Scottish self-determination, but also that the UK as a whole should decide on Brexit. Controlling for the social and political factors, Scots are increasingly polarised around issues of sovereignty, which have become central to contemporary Scottish politics.”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.12958
What song’s that Turabin?
The party’s over
It’s time to call it a day
They’ve burst your
Pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
Taken the moon away! That’s a bit extreme just to stop us moonhowlin’
Aullaaaaa! Aullaaaaa! Aullaaaaa!
GERI
English REFORM could restyle as the NEW PARTY, which has a certain historic traction.
There must be somebody in the ranks with classic matinée idol looks to front it, Farage working the mechanism of course.
Let British neo fascism flourish, Oy! Oy! Oy!
The only person that can save the movement is Salmond.
The only one with a grown up strategy.
The only one with any integrity
The only one with the management skills.
It will be interesting to see it Swinney can read the room or will he also lead the crash into the scottish elections in two years.
At least Russell could read the room and left the stage.
Sturgeon and Lloyd are still on the UKC payroll
@Geri 10.49 am
you’re all over the place here. Non voters don’t count. Not in general election, not in referendums.
The Brexiteers got a majority of those that voted. No got a majority of those that voted in 2014. Unless they change the FPTP system, folk just have to put up with a PM who won 64% of the seats on 34% of the vote. If they don’t like it, they can vote for parties who advocate changing the system. Not looking good so far as both the Tories and Labour like the current system just the way it is.
Folk who don’t vote can’t complain about the result not being what they wanted, or moan about the actions of parties who won when they couldn’t be bothered to vote. That’s democracy for you.
Similarly, if Scots don’t like the way things are, they’re perfectly entitled to change them by the simple expedient of voting. We just saw hundreds of thousands staying at home and not bothering, and hundreds of thousands of others abandoning the SNP to vote for a unionist party which is scarcely distinguishable from the Tories.
What thatcher said in the 70’s isn’t relevant now. If you think the British nationalist state, the Scottish independence movement as a whole and the international community will accept attempts to declare independence which aren’t backed up by a clear majority, in response to a clear question, expressed in a popular vote you’re even more delusional than unreasoned rantings suggest.
Ah the old, I disagree with you so I must be a plant and a liar.
No worries, Mia, from now on I’ll scroll past all of your tedious long winded repetitions and boring analysis.
Thanks Alf Baird for always succinctly putting your comments on decolonisation.
I’ve learnt a lot.
Also thank Chris for another cartoon getting straight to the point
@sam 10.57
I don’t see what the figures you quote about self-identification prove exactly?
They’re interesting certainly, but they don’t necessarily correlate to support for independence. Doubtless many of those who identify only as Scottish are “proud Scots, but…” types and staunch unionists too.
The issue is ensuring “sovereigntists” constitute the majority and that they are mobilised to ensure that “our” parliament cannot be over-ruled or dictated to by the Westminster parliament with respect to constitutional issues like whether an how often we get to hold referendums, or what areas of policy fall within Holyrood’s competence.
Of course the promise of Home Rule in the lying Vow of 2014 wasn’t fulfilled, and was never likely to be. If Scots want super duper devo max, then they have to vote for it, and not take no for an answer. The trouble is, moving from the current level of devolution to a more detached kind, assumes we can bring the British nationalists to the negotiating table. There’s no guarantee they’ll agree.
If the SNP and independence movement generally had had any gumption after 2014, they’d have capitalised on the 2015 result and demanded that the Smith Commission started from the premise that everything other than defence and foreign policy was on the table for Holyrood to control, and that it was up to the British nationalists to justify why responsibility for ANY other policy area should remain with Westminster.
Of course, the issue with that is that most little Englanders would refuse to contemplate such a deal, and would probably think it’d be better just to ditch the union altogether to get rid of the “rebellious Scots” as the national anthem has it.
Given recent events, I’m beginning to think the Britnats throwing us out of the union is more likely to happen than Scots summoning up the courage to take their independence rather than ask for it cap in hand, and meekly accept being told “now is not the time”.
Shug @ 11.08.
I’m not sure that Mr Swiney is bothered about “reading the room”, Shug.
I get the impression that like the remainder of the troughers at Holyrood he’s very satisfied just to read his FM’s salary, expenses and pension pot.
A proven failure as leader, returned to sit out his time to his great financial benefit.
Great interview with Joanna Cherry on Sky News.
Warning a lot of it is about gender id.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZcTBi6vFX4&t=4098s
Excellent straight talking from Joanna Cherry very unusual for a politician.
I recommend you take a break from ‘The Cock Fight’ & watch it.
I won’t take long. A lot less time than it takes to read some of the posts on here.
I’ll have to put some of the posts on my bedside cabinet. Don’t know if I’ll ever get around to reading them although I always have good intentions.
Trevor Phillips says Keir Stramer used ‘The Rose Garden’ strategy when discussing Labour policies.
Excellent analogy. Starmer never promised anything.
That’s one for the ‘What the fuck now Scotland’ playlist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXHsWBKKNbI
I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There’s gotta be a little rain sometime
When you take you gotta give so live and let live or let go
Oh-whoa-whoa-whoa
I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
@Andy Ellis
You should read what’s at the link. Always useful.
@ Andy Ellis
First of all, let me start by saying that neither your off-the-scale arrogance nor your tendency to dishing ad hominem constitute any form of evidence in favour of your argument. In fact, it is evidence that you know your argument cannot be trusted.
If the only way you feel you can level the field to protect your delicate ego from a bruising from the opponent of the hour is by showering them in ad hominem before you even claim to start rebating their argument, then it is evident that you have already acknowledged you have lost the argument before you even started writing and you are writing just for the sake of it.
People reading these threads are actively interested in politics so they are not your average punter. They immediately recognise ad hominem as soon as they see it. And we all know here what ad hominem actually is: the shield to hide your acknowledgement that your argument is weak.
You say: “Even if it’s true that the majority of native born Scots voted Yes in 2014, that woudln’t have been accepted by either the movement as a whole … or by the international community”
First of all, I am not entirely sure what makes you think that after being in Scotland for five minutes you have any right to claim you are the spokesperson for the entire movement. You are not. I do not know either what do you mean by “the movement”.
Scotland’s native population are the most fundamental part of the independence movement because they are what defines the Scots as a people. I do not know where you got the idea that your opinion and your wishes are or must be accepted as being above those of the people who were born here and lived here their entire lives.
With regards to the international community, I think it is about time you stopped putting the cart ahead of the horse. The opinion of the international community counts for nothing if the actual natives of your country reject the franchise you wish to impose of them to satisfy your own ego. The first ones you have to please are the natives if you want to go somewhere. The international community comes after, not the other way round. I would have thought that somebody clever like you would have realised of that by now.
I am well aware that by moving the fight to Holyrood, Mr Salmond will be using the same flawed franchise that he used in 2014 and will be opening, unwillingly, the same doors for abuse that the British state happily took advantage of in 2014. That is precisely one of the reasons why I am not convinced by Alba’s strategy.
Let me ask you: What have you seen for the last 10 years? Why do you think the people of Scotland were already demanding another referendum or independence a few minutes after the official result was announced?
Because they did not see the official result as the settled will of the people of Scotland in the matter. Fact of the matter is that the people of Scotland have been trying to change that result since the day after 18 September 2014. The only reason why that result has not changed is because those who call themselves Scotland’s representatives have conspired and colluded with the crown and the British establishment to stop that happening.
Under such circumstance, quite frankly, who gives a shit about what the international community thinks about the franchise when they are not lifting a finger to prevent the people of Scotland being systematically, continuously and deliberately denied of the right to select their preferred choice and express their will?
“which wouldn’t accept a gerrymandered franchise..”
The only gerrymandered franchise is that which is specifically designed to quash the will of the natives with the will of enough se..ers, as we observed it was done in 2014.
A gerrymandered franchise is one that has not an specific list of citizens and instead dilutes the native vote by handing a free vote to anybody who sets a foot in the country or simply owns a property in the country independently of for how long or with what intentions.
“Self determination referendums are based on open, inclusive franchises”
No, they are not. Stop making up crap. Self determination referendums are based on FAIR franchises. The franchise forced on us on 2014 was unfair to the natives.
“Overwhelming numbers of MPs sent to the Westminster parliament signify nothing”
this is incorrect. This is a parliamentary democracy, hence it is the number of MPs what counts, not the number of votes. You are making things up again.
“because 56 of 59 MPs represented less than 50% of those who voted”
Please remind me: how many votes in Scotland backed the fundamental constitutional change that brexit represented?
Stop talking nonsense, please.
“The SNP in particular has been slow to cotton on”
I disagree. I am of the opinion the SNP never had the intention of holding a second referendum at all. They were simply biding for time to revert the pro-SNP inertia and ensure the establishment could send a labour PM to n10.
“we have to find an alternative route to independence”
The route is already there and it has been in place since 1707. We just have to use it and either force our so called representatives to use it or bypass them altogether.
“The only feasible routes are plebiscitary elections”
No they are not. Given the circumstances where we are when we are systematically denied in the electoral ballots of the preferred option we want to select and we can only expect that we will continue to be denied of that option for the foreseeable future, the only feasible route in front of us is to find a way to bypass the political class and their bullshit entirely.
“which can’t be denied by British nationalists”
What is the point of a “plebiscitary” election when the option you want to vote has been deliberately removed from the ballot? That will be a “plebiscitary” “election” only in name and therefore completely pointless. A con. We have just had one of those this week.
” or some legalistic “cunning plan for indy” route…”
Give it a rest. The bottom line is you cannot demand democracy when you are systematically denying the means for democracy to be effected.
“The latter can only be seen as a huge long shot”
On the contrary. 10 years of deliberate and systematic denial of democracy for the people of Scotland and systematic denial of the means to exercise the right to self determination makes the political route towards independence look like a huge long shot. The route that bypasses politics looks as the more feasible now.
“As someone pointed out above, Reform came from nowhere”
Reform did not come from nowhere. Reform was installed by the establishment as a strategy to manipulate the vote and ensure a labour win. hTe establishment was very concerned about the impact of the independent candidates of the result. Stop talking nonsense. Take a hard look at the funding for this party that, according to you, came from nowhere and then take a look at the number of candidates they managed to source is such little time. Now take a look at how incredibly difficult is for the new parties in Scotland to put together the means to be in a position to stand even in one seat.
Reform, just like UKIP was in its day, is an establishment damage-limitation tool deployed to manage the vote.
“The only thing stopping Scots voting for independence in 2026 is the lack of political balls amongst enough of the Scottish people”
Oh dear. Now you are transferring the blame and accountability from the useless and betraying so called “representatives” of Scotland to the victims themselves. Textbook move of the classic bully.
The SNP fanzine the National reporting that those SNP troughers who got booted out of the English HoC, that some of them are eyeing up a seat at Holyrood, when the 2026 elections come around, some are hoping to get their snouts in the Holyrood trough via the List Vote, maybe some already SNP MSPs troughers will be deselected to allow ex-MP SNP troughers to stand in their constituencies.
@ Ruby
That was a very interesting interview with Joanna Cherry, Ruby. Thank you for including the link. From what she said, it sounds as she might have retained the seat if she had been an independent candidate instead of standing for the SNP.
Ruby Sunday @ 12:02 pm
“straight talking from Joanna Cherry”
Aye, but it might help if she and the rest of the daeless SNP elite knew what independence means – i.e. decolonization.
Our independence leaders failure to understand or accept Scotland’s colonial reality means they are unlikely to find the only remedy – i.e. liberation:
https://salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/THEORETICAL+CASE+FOR+SCOTTISH+INDEPENDENCE.pdf
Breeks @ 10:03 am
“We need only kill the Treaty itself once and it is done; it ceases to exist.”
Yes, this is and should always have been the key aim of elected nationalist majorities as the key to immediately unlock our colonial prison. There is absolutely no doubt that it is one of the most corrupt of alliance treaties and quite probably the most violated treaty ever handed to a sovereign people subsequently colonized. A colonial hoax if ever there was one.
That the SNP elites even elected into colonial governance with access to hundreds of lawyers and money, and Scotland still with a separate legal system, has never bothered to prove this reality confirms their lack of sincerity or interest in liberating the people.
Finding a solution to a worthless violated treaty should never be this difficult, according to Professors Hamilton and Herwig, who wrote that:
“Treaties are words on paper that by themselves have little or no determinative impact. Not cast in stone for eternity, their import is bound by time and circumstance. Their terms will ordinarily be upheld only insofar as they serve “the national interest.” The age-old argument of alliance determinism assumes an effective international rule of law and honorable alliance partners. But most experts in international affairs would count those as among the most naive hypotheses imaginable.”
Scotland’s ongoing exploitation, economic under-development and domination by England means it is not possible to regard the Treaty of Union as ever being in Scotland’s national interest, nor is the UK Union involving an ‘honorable alliance partner’.
I wonder what Cherry will do next… I have a feeling we will be seeing more of her.
I’ve noticed there are big skeletons in the SNP cupboard that even people who are deeply critical of Sturgeon don’t refer to. And that’s very odd because I get the sense that it’s those big issues that best explain the collapse in SNP support.
Swinney says they need to listen. Are there conditions on what people are allowed to say when he listens?
Premise: the SNP can’t heal and recover unless it tells the truth about the big skeletons.
Premise: if the SNP tells the truth about the big skeletons people will be shocked and there will be outrage.
Conclusion: the SNP is well and truly fucked.
I suspect Sturgeon knows it’s just a matter of time before the big skeletons spring to life and she finds herself in the sort of predicament that Jason and the Argonauts famously found themselves in; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY
But Nicola isn’t Jason and her cabal aren’t Argonauts.
Everything she has done since her resignation, including her very weird appearance on election night TV, looks like method acting; highly choreographed enactments of how an innocent Nicola would behave.
Things are going to get interesting.
The Trevor Phillips interview with J Cherry linked to above (12:02 c/o Ruby) is interesting, not for what she says, for not a single contributor to Wings would I’m sure disagree with her analysis, but because she is the first senior SNP figure to publicly do a Brutus on Sturgeon.
Too little, too late I’m afraid for the recently unemployed KC from Edinburgh, but it’ll be interesting to see if she is the only former MP to speak up. If she is, it’ll show how much the dead hand of the Goblin Queen holds sway over the Sham Nationalist Party.
Andy Ellis – I don’t think you have read what’s at the link..
“By 2015, 42 per cent of people in Scotland thought that the Scottish Parliament had most influence over how Scotland is governed, but three quarters thought that it ought to have most influence. We can see with hindsight that debates and arguments about where sovereignty and legitimacy were embedded in the bedrock of devolution, but they have become more salient as politics has been played out in the past decade. In 2019, one of us observed: ‘Simply asserting that in legal terms the Scottish Parliament is a creature of Westminster ignores the politics. Almost everything these days passes through the filter of self-government’.13 That filter is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.”
The change in support for Labour may be temporary and short-lived.
Republicofscotland
Joanna Cherry was asked that question in her interview with Trevor Phillips.
Not a snowballs chance of Joanna standing for the SNP at Holyrood if Sturgeon is still ruling the roost and not in prison. I know which of the rejected MPs will. They will be judged on their IQ & past Sturgeon fluffing. The SNP are finished and Joanna will get the same response in 2026 as she did in 2024. ‘I would love to vote for you Joanna but I just can’t for for the SNP.’
It will be interesting to see what Joanna decides to do.
Joanna said something strange in her interview
‘Of course I support trans rights I myself am a lesbian’
Maybe she meant I support trans rights. (full stop) I myself am a lesbian’
Anyway she supports trans rights as does Neale Hanvey.
Which obviously means they both believe ‘transwomen are women’
Just making that point as I got a lot of stick for saying that.
If you support trans rights you’re not going to claim transwomen are men and they should us the gents.
Just heard Liz Lloyd ( founder of Vietnam) on the radio for the second time proffering advice.
Why is she not in jail?
Who is protecting her?
Who is promoting her?
I would love to vote for you Joanna if you could explain what you mean by trans rights.
You seem great as does Neale Hanvey except for this support of trans-rights.
I would also be helpful if you could explain what you mean by trans-rights.
@Ruby Sunday I took her supporter of trans rights to mean they should not be discriminated in terms housing, promotion etc but that the 2010 EQA if upheld properly allows blocking of TIMS with a GRC from single sex spaces
The original GRA never specified what sex meant as I assume no one ever thought for a minute that the definition was ambiguous.
Now I believe the GRA needs repealed.
Also Angus MacNeil now getting the knives out.
I don’t think Sturgeon will survive much longer.
The fact is, she should be at least suspended on no pay due to the on going investigations and that she barely spends 50% of her time in Holyrood
Also Angus MacNeil now getting the knives out.
Links always good
Cheers
Re Liz Lloyd
During the Fabiani Fiasco, Lloyd’s name along with that of Geoff Aberdein were amongst the most frequently mentioned. Neither appeared in front of the committee but both appeared as TV pundits on election night.
Funny, that.
Mia good post. Particularly about the referendum result being immediately rejected by Scots as the settled will. The term buyers regret springs to mind.
Other than the usual Orange order , Rangers Ultra brigade. Noone was smiling at the result. I think the swithering Yes voters who voted no on economic grounds. Felt that they had actually betrayed Scotland. A bit like when you go along with a bully , because it’s easier than calling them out.Meanwhile their victims are abandoned, because you chose the wrong side.
Since that vote Scotland has been on a downward trajectory. The UK is not a good place , and Brexit compounds this.
We need to escape, but noone can agree on the road map.
The next 2 years will be horrible. But we survived 2014, and that was worse. Tinfoil hats allround please.
https://tinyurl.com/bdhhdwxj
Nicola Sturgeon ‘personality cult’ blamed for SNP defeat
I’ve done this one because I’m a good woman and know folk have difficulties doing links on mobile phones
I’ll check the Sunday Mail later.
I might do a ‘Knives Out’ playlist too.
Get your music, books, Shakespeare quotes out and contribute.
Alex Salmond just can’t let go he voted for the SNP candidate in his constituency in Thursday’s GE.
Anyone able to archive/link the original Sunday Mail piece with Angus MacNeil?
I can’t read the summary on Nicla’s fanzine… whenever I see its banner a rest mist descends.
The Britnat Brainwashing Channel quotes the Fat Controller a.k.a Ian Blackford as saying Cherry is “bitter”.
Just when a ray of light extends from the Sham Nationalist Party a black cloud appears to obscure it.
Carry on folks…nothing to see here.
@sam 1.31pm
I’m not obliged to read every article or link some random off t’internet insists is some ex cathedra proof.
It’s been the case for a long time that a super majority of Scots voters believe that only Holyrood should have the power to decide when and how often the Scots people have a referendum. That obviously includes that a significant number of Scottish unionists, since support for independence has only rarely polled at >50% over the past few years.
I agree that the uptick in Red Tory support may be temporary: I certainly hope so. As is usual, we can always rely on the lumpen Scottish electorate to do the wrong thing. Voting Labour a few days ago isn’t materially different from believing that SNP 1 & 2 was a good idea at the last Holyrood elections, or that carrying on voting SNP in hope they’d change and prioritise independence rather than gender-woo would lead to #indyref2, or that it was more important to mount a doomed attempt to stop Brexit altogether than to use the balance of power they then had at Westminster to wring a Northern Ireland style deal or other concessions from Westminster.
It’s increasingly difficult not to reach the conclusion that the current generation of nationalists (or perhaps more correctly pseudo-nationalists) just aren’t up to the job.
Ruby Sunday @1.33pm.
Rotund Ian Blackford called Cherry bitter on her honest account of the SNP.
Blackford added.
“Former SNP Westminister leader Ian Blackford admitted the party are backing First Minister John Swinney to turn around the party’s woes because “there isn’t really anybody else.””
Destiny Calling…
If those people on here who believe in the Claim of Right route were to compile their ideas in the form of a book, that book would probably achieve better sales if it was classified Science Fiction & Fantasy rather than Politics or History.
In the real world, everything depends on securing and establishing the majority support of the people. There are ancient documents in Scottish history such as The Declaration of Arbroath that also give weight to ‘the sovereignty of the people’ but since the principle has been universalised in established international law (League of Nations, UN Charter, etc.) there’s really no need for us to delve into ancient history.
That’s a good thing because self determination — unlike ‘the historical route’ (as demonstrated by its proponents on here) — can be explained in a couple of sentences rather than a couple of books and is easy to grasp.
The route to Scottish independence is actually relatively straightforward once you have majority support and political representation that is able to make advances. We don’t have all of those ducks in a row right now but with capable leadership that could change very quickly.
I am not sure if Alba is the way forward and even if it is I think it’s leadership and the whole approach of the party would need to change. But with the right leader, Alba could take us where we want to go.
I stressed the importance of leadership yesterday and the qualities that are required of him (or her). I admire Salmond but I’m not sure if he is the man for the job.
We need someone who is an acknowledged expert on Scottish politics, someone who is respected across the constitutional divide, someone that appeals to both men and women, and someone who will demand the attention of the MSM without relying on it to get his message out.
In short, the independence movement needs Stuart Campbell and Wings to lead it. And if that isn’t staring us all right in the face right now, I know absolutely fuck all about anything.
Just wait until you see Cherry’s reply
OOOOFT
Andrew Scott….
Link please?
Herald on line
Jeezo Oh a NYT report has hard hitting evidence that a N-at–o unit fighting with U forces are deliberately murdering P-o-W’s.
The unit is called Special Purpose Company and it is a N-a–to standardised fully autonomous unit.
@Andy Ellis
“I’m not obliged to read every article or link some random off t’internet insists is some ex cathedra proof.”
What a piece of shite and what a shit you are.
There was neither insistence or suggestion of proof.
You’re easy to dislike with your stupidity and arrogance.
@Hatuey 3.17 pm
We need someone who is an acknowledged expert on Scottish politics, someone who is respected across the constitutional divide, someone that appeals to both men and women, and someone who will demand the attention of the MSM without relying on it to get his message out.
That’s a tough one right enough. So far I’m not coming up with anyone. Zero. Nada. Zilch.
Much as I respect Rev Stu’s sterling work and contributions I fear he’s too much of a Marmite character.
Anyone remaining in the SNP is in my view tainted, and any of the younger generation are likely to be infected with toxic levels of genderism to have survived in that party’s atmosphere.
We have to utterly destroy the SNP first.
Joanna Cherry should have been FM a long long time ago.
It should’ve happened straight after the 2017 GE when Sturgeon lost 20+ seats.
I still remember the poisoned dwarfs face when Cherry received numerous standing ovations at conference & some arsehole tried to hurry her off the stage.
The knives were out for her & the poisoned dwarf changed the rules to block her standing in Holyrood cause she was the dead cert to be challenger.
Sturgeon should have been removed from her seat & the party pending her ongoing investigation. The fact she wasn’t tells you everything you need to know about the SNP. Thieving, lying, self serving barstewards not to be trusted with anything.
Swinney resigned before because he was absolute shit.
He isn’t going to be any better the 2nd time around.
I disagree with her about competent government too. She hasn’t seen the books of Holyrood… yet.
Swinney should sack the Murrell’s immediately. Sack Foote & call a leadership bid with Cherry for FM & call a new election to clear out the dross.
Will he do it? No. Mr Establishment man is doing as he’s told & will go nowhere. The aim is to kill the SNP off & he’ll make sure of it.
That’s what psychotic narcissists do. They’d rather burn Holyrood to the ground than hand over. & Swinney is no different. He’s complicit in all of it & he knows where the bodies are buried. No way will he hand that info over to a new FM.
& Btw, Joanna should’ve got her finger out her arse long before now. She had ten years to advance Scottish independence. She didn’t. She let Neale Harvey do things she could & should have done yrs before.
Imagine the SNP today if my two favourite ladies were at the top.
Joanna Cherry as FM
Philippa Whitford as Deputy.
Both ace at their brief. One a lawyer & knows her way in a courtroom – the other a surgeon who knows the inside of an NHS hospital.
Their talent was wasted in Westminster. They should have both been serving in Holyrood.
Shame it never happened.
@ Hatuey
I’d question the need for a leader as putting an individual on a pedestal and having all focus and faith in them to lead a movement leaves it very easy for the powers that be to attack and take an individual out in the way we have seen recently with the likes of Corbyn and Salmond.
Likewise a political Party can also be targeted by association to tarred individuals within it, or incompetent, unwanted, or failed policies. I’m sure plenty comes to mind to prove that point…
What is needed though is an agreed method for Scotland to enact its will in matters of self-determination.
Smith Pish Commission stated something like “Nothing stops Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should it so wish”, but it didn’t clarify but what means. Scotland has been blocked by “Now is not the time” waffle and other political machinations from Westminster.
I’ve stated for years that non-party affiliated politicians that actually represent their constituents is the way forward.
So the solution I see is to eliminate or severely reduce the abilities and effectiveness of those that wish to attack and undermine a particular strategy.
Therefore as a plan we go local with tailored strategies for our own specific areas as that will be much harder for the powers that be to attack and undermine.
There are 56 constituencies in Scotland, so we identify 56 honest and respected pro-indy individuals (common sense to have several who could run in case of illness or other life event as a backup) in each constituency with no serious skeletons in their closets to stand for election for Westminster on an abstentionist / ending the Union manifesto.
We have 5 years (it could be less seeing as the fixed term parliament act appears to be worthless) to work away in our constituencies to build networks and raise awareness and support for 56 I4I candidates to win support on a manifesto of abstention from Westminster and ending the Union if a majority of them are elected in their respective constituencies.
This strategy means we are effectively working away under the radar and limits the abilities of the powers that be to form an attack.
And if they try to attack then it is far more likely to fail because the folk in that specific locality will be minded to rally round and protect their own and deflect the attack by outsiders to the point it may even backfire on those that attempted it.
This is what should have been getting done as a Plan B 5 years ago when it became clear the NuSNP had no intention or strategy in place for returning Scotland to self-governance.
So the question is will folk actually pick up and run with this as the Keep It Simple Solution, because all other political maneuvers I’ve seen muted so far have serious flaws.
EG. The 2026 Scottish Parliament isn’t really enough time to do what is required. It involves multiple Parties working with each other. The more complex Holyrood 2 vote system mechanism throws spanners in the works, the UK constitution is reserved to Westminster, unionist may well control most of the 32 local authorities after the next council elections and the NuSNP vote share dropping.
We’ve just had another example of how behind the curve or disenfranchised the electorate are. No way you will it be possible to make 2026 Scottish Parliament a plebiscite.
I think anybody pushing hard for 2026 as a plebiscite election doesn’t understand what or how the electorate think, or more likely is just at it trying to get folk to waste yet more time and effort expended on an unrealistic goal.
He’s a cunt!
Dan, a political movement without leadership is like a rudder without a boat. There’s a reason why all the countries and all political parties in the world have leaders. Some leaders turn out to be useless or assholes but when that happens we don’t ditch the idea of leadership, we replace the leader with someone who we think we will do better.
As for Wings being marmite, only to the sort of morons we don’t want near us. The idea that you need to appeal to everybody and avoid upsetting anyone is crap. Independence is going to piss a lot of people off and whoever leads the independence movement is going to be attacked. I can’t think of anyone that could handle that sort of abuse better than Stuart Campbell — he’s proven that over the years.
If Salmond had any sense, he’d gather all his people around him tonight and explain to them that the only person who can save the independence movement and Alba is Stuart Campbell. He’s the only person I’d trust and I’m not alone; there’s a reason his blog is the most visited politics website in Scotland.
Further to all that, the stance Wings took on gender and other stuff like the finances has demonstrated to everybody that he puts principle above party politics. That stance has won him a lot of respect across the constitutional divide, as well as with women (a rather important demographic that has been somewhat neglected of late). His stock has never been so high.
Sure, there would be a lot of initial attacks and people casting up crap like swearing, but that would soon disappear. Stuart Campbell has the X factor, that hard to define leadership quality that draws people and demands attention; his involvement would electrify Scottish politics. He’s a force of nature.
The only problem is he won’t do it and even that reluctance underlines his suitability for the job (on the basis that nobody who wants political power should ever be given it).
If not him, though, who? None of the other possible candidates even come close.
robertkknight
says:
7 July, 2024 at 2:38 pm
Anyone able to archive/link the original Sunday Mail piece with Angus MacNeil?
I think this is it. It’s a bit confusing because it’s on the Daily Record but it’s written by
John Ferguson Sunday Mail political editor. Hence reason it was hard to find.
https://tinyurl.com/2xsr25ch
‘Personality cult’ of Nicola Sturgeon to blame for SNP implosion claims ex-MP in blistering attack
Angus MacNeil, who was the Western Isles MP for 19 years before losing his seat this week, branded the leadership “fools” and “enablers”.
I did this one while I was at it:
https://tinyurl.com/29fn89us
Alba leader Alex Salmond admits he voted SNP to stop Douglas Ross winning seat for Tories
Btw, Ellis, everything I say about Scottish politics is on the basis that the SNP will probably cease to exist in the next few months. That is now looking inevitable. All we had to do was kick the door in and the whole rotten edifice came crashing down…
Wings’ part in bringing all this about was massive. And that’s just another reason he’s the best man for the job.
@ Hatuey
I’ve posted these links to Flying with Wings, and The cat and all the pigeons articles recently.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/flying-with-wings/
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-cat-and-all-the-pigeons/
They were undoubtedly an interesting and thought provoking read but ultimately the numbers didn’t hold up. Were they even a part of the catalyst that kicked the establishment into gear to deal with such a hypothetical…
Stu does a great job with what he does, but being just one person means that it is impossible for him to have the time and insight to cover every facet requiring to be dealt with in a dynamic campaign.
We’ve had “leaders” and it hasn’t worked out well for the reasons I’ve previously stated.
Can you actually critique my suggestion because I’d be interested to hear other folks’ views on the matter.
If folk want to continue doing the same thing over and over and are expecting different results, I have little interest in such insane activities, and can easily find more rewarding stuff do with my time.
Having met and having a blether with Angus B MacNeil at an Alba function earlier in the year, I think he has the commitment, aura and presentation to lead the pro-independence movement forward.
AS has a role to play in strategy and tactics but I think AB MacNeil would be a ‘media-friendly’ face of the independence movement.
What say yooz?
Brian
Aye that’s a good choice.
He always handles himself well to the media. He knows his stuff & as far as I’ve seen he’s never been caught unawares & always has an answer.
I know he was absolutely scunnered with Sturgeon & said it often enough on various indy live shows. His plan B all those years ago too. Sturgeon was a closed shop. Not the first time I’d heard that too.
He was also outspoken over the stupidity of Sturgeon backing an early election that’d only gift BoJo a thumping majority to do as he pleased & that’s exactly what happened.
He’s one of the good guys & I hope he sticks around. He should have been leader of the Westminster group too. He deserved it after time spent before boring Blackford turned up but Sturgeon only ever favoured, funded & promoted ppl in her wee secretive clique.
I despise ppl like that. They’re absolutely toxic to be around.
Dan
“Smith Pish Commission stated something like “Nothing stops Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should it so wish”, but it didn’t clarify but what means. ”
It did. It said if that’s what a majority voted for.
Well we had majorities & as you say, waffling pish took over.
And AGAIN fck all in any legal document. The Smith Commission, we were then told, was just silly wee “recommendations”
We had the establishment by the bollocks in 2014 & that’s what Sturgeon walked away with..fkn recommendations.
I agree it should all be independents. No party affiliation. No whip. No lobby groups. Each individual responsible for themselves & their own constituency.
This was put forward before on here before by Scott too so long ago now. Have everyone stand as an independent MP/MSP. I’d be up for that.
This wouldn’t be anything new to parliament either.
I’m lead to believe that’s exactly how MPs are elected anyway – as individuals & once elected can do as they please. Even switch sides if the notion takes them or go off script as we seen under Sturgeon.
They don’t need a leader. A leader immediately starts getting ideas above themselves. Sturgeon is a classic example of giving one individual absolute rule.
She chose who could stand for election or face deselection. She chose who had campaign funds & who didn’t.
She chose her own pet agendas & ignored everyone else.
She chose whether she’d use a mandate or not bother.
She chose what could be discussed at conference & what couldn’t.
She chose to ignore direct instruction from voters at many elections AND from conference votes too.
She chose who’d to be frozen out of favour.
She ruled worse than Thatcher. Shy wee lassie fae Irvine my fucking arse. Another lie to add to her growing list.
Dan, I thought I did critique its most essential element but if you want a more detailed response consider this…
In the first place, it would take something very much resembling a political party to implement what you are talking about, in other words it would take a party and since someone would need to manage that party it would also take leadership.
If you look into the history of voting in the UK, you will see that it very much operated along the lines you suggest at one time, before they extended the franchise. Party politics in the UK was a response to the extension of the franchise aimed at curtailing the rabble (as the rich seen it). They really worried about the sort of situation you describe that would give power to the people; party politics and the creation of the MSM solved the problem for them.
Thus, you would still face the party machines of other parties, highly organised, plenty of money, help from their celebrity leaders, help from the MSM, etc.
We don’t need to guess at that since we have just witnessed local figures being trounced up and down the UK by the big parties. Being local is no guarantee of anything.
I travel around Scotland a lot and it never ceases to amaze me to see so many people wearing the strips of teams like Rangers, Celtic, Liverpool, etc. Not all people in local communities want local solutions, teams, politicians, etc.
At the end of the day, you’d still need to win the argument for independence. And you’d still face all the anti-independence propaganda that we face now… I don’t know why you think that would be any less powerful.
I remember reading the articles you linked to when they were published here. Both of them refer to competing on the regional lists.
I think Rev. Stu should be competing up-front for first votes. Times have changed since those articles were written and I think politics has becomes more suited to no-nonsense confrontationists like Stu.
If Alba had Stuart Campbell as leader, it would be guaranteed the publicity and attention it desperately needs. The MSM would love it — he’d give them stories and headlines every day.
Wings is the most influential voice in Scottish politics by a long shot. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of that.
@ Mia throughout the thread, Mr Ellis’s arse must be red raw with all the tanning you have given it throughout
Mr Ellis is one of the WHITE FLIGHT group to Scotland away from the HORDES coming over the channel, Mr Ellis says that after 25 years in his beautiful home in the leafy south of england he was pining to be with his ain fowk in the grime ridden capital of Edinburgh (aye right)
Mr Ellis brought his english wife, pronoun daughter and his MIL and FIL up to Scotland to savour the bounteous goodness of Scotland and Scots
Mr Ellis continuously assures the comments section that he KNOWS exactly what the international community will accept as evidence for us to gain our independence
Mr Ellis vehemently asserts that he KNOWS what the independence movement is willing to accept for inclusion to move forward, Mr Ellis vehemently asserts that ONLY civic progressive nationalism is acceptable within the movement and that as a founder member of the ALBA party any deviation from that criteria would be opposed and fought against by the movement as blood and soil nationalism
Unfortunately for Mr Ellis his chosen party alba which only adheres to civic progressive nationalism where anyone from anywhere can decide the future of Scotland only received 1.5% of votes from the constituencies they stood in. but a party only weeks old and vehemently opposed to immigration won 7% of the votes in Scotland
Maybe Mr Ellis should tell that 7% that they do not represent Scotland or the movement
Hatuey at 1:10 am
“Dan, I thought I did critique its most essential element but if you want a more detailed response consider this…
Thus, you would still face the party machines of other parties, highly organised, plenty of money, help from their celebrity leaders, help from the MSM, etc.
We don’t need to guess at that since we have just witnessed local figures being trounced up and down the UK by the big parties. Being local is no guarantee of anything.
I travel around Scotland a lot and it never ceases to amaze me to see so many people wearing the strips of teams like Rangers, Celtic, Liverpool, etc. Not all people in local communities want local solutions, teams, politicians, etc.
At the end of the day, you’d still need to win the argument for independence. And you’d still face all the anti-independence propaganda that we face now… I don’t know why you think that would be any less powerful.”
Cheers for response.
Firstly you haven’t mentioned anything about my point and supporting thoughts on utilising a Westminster rather than Holyrood election.
Aye, I’m well aware we would be up against the conventional political machinery the establishment rolls out. That’s the same machinery that the electorate are getting pretty pissed off with as turnouts show, so it’s ripe territory to try an alternative method of harnessing the political will of those that feel disenfranchised. The campaign message is simple too, as it’s the yay or nay binary choice of returning Scotland to self-governance. Not the complexity of all manner of policies as those will be for Scots to decide after.
The few local independent candidates standing in last week’s GE did not fair well because they only decided to stand a few months ago, which isn’t time for their constituents to even begin to be aware of them and consider supporting them. That’s why I mention far longer timescales explicitly for this reason.
How the fuck does the different football shirts you see folk wearing some how tell you about their preferred methods of political representation. That’s quite a leap.
The whole point of what I suggested is to quietly work away under the radar and away from bullshit MSM propaganda and inane social media feeds that melt folks’ brains.
If folk are actually serious about wanting change, then the first step is they need to change too and start learning the basics of how their society and their lives are controlled.
But if folk are too lazy and/or addicted to shitey social media feeds and the current rigged game and they have no intentions of changing, then the old adage that they get the government they deserve kicks in.
Fucks sake, formatting fail because this site’s preview post function still doesn’t work properly…
Start at “Cheers for response”
@twatbynametwatbynature 4.01am
In the unlikely event many folk read Logorrhea Mia’s personal blogs masquerading as comments and can find their way through the constipated prose that makes Effie Deans look like genius in comparison, the only thing she’s spanking is a monkey.
Like aw’ the other moonhowlers you go absolutely tonto when simple facts are pointed out to you. My views represent those of the majority. It’s not hard. The views of you and your xenophobic, bigoted, nativist mates represent a minority within a minority. It’s clear as day and demonstrable in polling evidence.
None of you understand basic constitutional law, international law or international relations and continually assert your woo-woo theories as *FACT* simply on the basis that you wish it were true.
The 7% of racists who supported Reform certainly don’t represent the movement or Scotland, but I can see why xenophobic intellectual dregs like you would be cheering their success.
@Hatuey 7.32 pm
Btw, Ellis, everything I say about Scottish politics is on the basis that the SNP will probably cease to exist in the next few months. That is now looking inevitable. All we had to do was kick the door in and the whole rotten edifice came crashing down…
Pleasant as it would be to see the SNP implode within the next few months, I fear their baleful influence on the body politik will continue for rather longer.
From memory your record with predictions hasn’t been all that great.
Dan, if you’re talking about WM, that would probably be even more futile. The SNP with its famous landslide and clearest of clear mandates couldn’t make a dent, in the most conducive of circumstances. Sure, they were crap at everything, but what might they have done differently? We have heard some ideas, but what’s yours?
There’s three problems, then; 1 arranging all this, 2 winning elections, and 3 converting the victories to independence.
My point about football teams is a point about the emphasis you put on local candidates — people seem to have more loyalty to big parties and big football teams than local candidates and local football teams.
As for the single issue idea, yes it would remove ambiguity, bring simplicity and clarity, etc., but there’s a reason nobody has done it.
It’s not much of a prediction, Ellis. They’re dropping like a stone as far as support goes, they just lost a truly massive portion of their funding, they seem to be ditching the very policy that all their success was based on, they have fucked nearly every aspect of society up, including the NHS and judicial system, they have a bunch of major legal issues and investigations hanging over them, and, they’re also politically weak (minority government).
They can no longer count on support from friendly civil servants, judges, journalists, business community, etc., because they’re going down and why would anyone risk going down with them or do them any favours?
The minority government part is interesting… how long before we see a challenge there? SLAB have a lot more to offer the greens (and others) now.
“The sentiment would appear to be that the main thing preventing Scotland from soaring high is the SNP; not the unionist parties; not Westminster; not the MSM but the SNP.”
Yes, that is precisely the case.
WHITE FLIGHTER Ellis calls people racist for objecting to unfettered immigration YET when he shites himself at the hordes threatening his house price he fucks off north, maybe Ellis is just a arsewipe hypocrite, and as for the MOVEMENT, the POOR showing of alba 1.5% and Salmond’s insistence that all are welcome here proves that your civic progressive pish isn’t as supported as you and Salmond think
YOU haven’t a clue what the, as YOU like to denigrate them, the schemies think about your progressive pish and neither do the politicians who instead of WORKING for the betterment of Scots are more interested in pandering to virtue signalling pricks like you who sit in their wee middle class bubble and pontificate , if anything you’re a bigger hypocrite than Farage at least his racism is open , you’re shite scared of the HORDES so you run away