Giving up on independence
It’s hard to express quite what a revolting piece of rank hypocrisy this is.
Behold, ladies and gentlemen and other genders, some pious little twerp whose own comfy seat in the Scottish Parliament was secured entirely by what he calls “cheating”, saying that nobody but him and his mates are allowed to cheat now.
Ross Greer, alert readers may recall, snuck into Holyrood on the very last list seat in West Scotland, with just 5.3% of the vote. That’s sub-Annie-Wells levels of support.
Greer owes his seat primarily to Jackie Baillie. If she hadn’t held onto Dumbarton by a wafer-thin 109 votes from the SNP’s Gail Robertson (just 0.3%), Labour would have taken an extra list seat and Greer would have been out on his arse.
(One of the most cheering aspects of current polling is that it strongly suggests Greer getting the boot next year as Scottish Labour continues to implode. Although Baillie would probably still creep in via the list even if, as seems likely, she loses Dumbarton to the SNP, the Greens would be squeezed out in a net indy-neutral switch.)
The Greens didn’t stand any constituency candidates in West Scotland (they fought just three of Scotland’s 73 constituencies, all token efforts with no hope of winning), so we know for certain that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who voted Green voted for another party – most likely the SNP – with their first vote. And yet now that exact same thing is being denounced by Greer as “cheating” and “a danger to the Yes movement”.
It’s a theme that many have been taking up recently.
It remains a great paradox that this strategy is simultanously capable of committing a gross democratic outrage against Scotland’s Unionist parties by supposedly depriving them of countless seats, yet would also be a great folly because it would “split the Yes vote” and give the Unionist parties MORE seats.
The ludicrous but logical conclusion of that thought process is people angrily decrying the idea of splitting the Yes vote by using your second vote for a list-only pro-indy party, and instead in the very same tweet advocating… splitting the Yes vote by using your second vote for a different list-only pro-indy party.
Hoo boy.
But we did all this stuff on Wednesday. Most of the opposition to the idea of a new list party comes from (a) vested interests within both pro-indy AND Unionist parties who sense a threat to their own power and/or positions, and (b) really stupid people who STILL don’t have the slightest grasp of how the Scottish electoral system works after 21 years and probably ought to shut up until they do.
(And we know the Electoral Commission, whose job it is to stamp out exactly this sort of cheating if it were to happen, have so far raised no objections to any of the new pro-indy list parties that have been created, so clearly they don’t think there’s anything improper or undemocratic or unfair about them.)
What’s much more concerning is the underlying meaning of all the protests from the SNP/Green payroll, apparatchiks hoping for their own seat on the gravy train one day, and gullible diehard activists: that they’ve given up on ever achieving independence.
Robin McAlpine has a pretty devastating critique on Source today spelling out what’s been obvious to many of us for some time.
Even though it shouldn’t have been necessary, because the First Minister herself has told us the same thing in the bluntest possible terms.
We’re not quite sure why a party with well over 500 elected members (47 MPs, 63 MSPs, 431 councillors, and some now rather underemployed MEPs), never mind all its well-paid officials and special advisers, is seemingly incapable of pursuing two goals at once, especially when one of them is the reason it’s supposed to exist. We’re all but certain that only a handful of ministers actually have anything useful to do in terms of fighting COVID-19 (which is now all but eradicated in Scotland anyway).
But even if every single one of them was patrolling the border personally in full PPE and machine-guns, they’ve had four and a half years to come up with progress on a viable independence strategy, in which time they’ve produced precisely zip. The only rational explanation available is that they don’t really want to.
Wee Ginger Dug, a pro-indy blog which has firmly nailed its colours to the “BELIEVE IN QUEEN NICOLA, BOTH VOTES SNP” mast, has a post today entitled “Disagreeing without being disagreeable”, which is a touch ironic given that as recently as yesterday it responded like this to someone disagreeing with it:
(Not that this site has any objection to a bit of colourful language, you understand, we just don’t like to lecture other people about it at the same time.)
But what the post ostensibly attempts to do is lay out routes the SNP could at least in theory take to try to bypass Westminster’s refusal of a Section 30. Unfortunately, what it comes up with is most kindly described as gibberish.
When you break it down, what the above amounts to is exactly the line Pete Wishart and others in the SNP have been peddling for months now: “if we just get one more mandate/even higher poll figures, the UK government will cave in because it’ll have to, or else we’ll [BLANK – FILL IN LATER]”.
But Scotland has nothing with which to “threaten” Boris Johnson. What are we going to do, elect fewer than the seven Tory MPs that we currently have in five years’ time? Oh yeah, that’ll have him and his 80-strong majority quaking.
We already know that Boris doesn’t give a bee’s bawbag about “preserving the British nationalist fiction that Scotland’s membership of the UK is voluntary” – and more crucially, neither do any of the opposition parties in the Commons. Labour and the Lib Dems are 100% on board with refusing a second referendum before 2040 under any and all circumstances whatsoever.
And an interesting poll of MPs today reveals that just 10% of Tory MPs think Scotland will be independent in the next decade, which suggests that they’re pretty confident they’re not going to give in on the issue.
So why do we need to wait for another election, another hollow mandate and a THIRD official refusal of a Section 30 order before maybe trying a different plan? According to WGD one such alternative would be a plebiscitary election, but if we’ve waited until AFTER next year’s vote to do that, we’d be postponing any possible chance until 2026.
That’s because it’s not easy to force a Holyrood election before it’s due. It requires a clear majority, and if we’ve rejected maximising the number of pro-indy seats because it’s “cheating” that’s far from guaranteed. We cannot assume the SNP’s current polling will hold up for 10 months – in 2016 they were on 62% a year before the election but ended up on 47%, and that was without any major scandals.
(Even if the move succeeded, it’s also extremely uncertain that the electorate would take kindly to being asked to endure another election just weeks after they’d had one.)
The piece is in reality simply a surrender – “Let’s do a thing that we know definitely isn’t going to work because we’ve tried it several times already, and then afterwards we can maybe ask the SNP to consider doing some other stuff that has even less chance of working, and that they’d never contemplate in a million years anyway.”
Every one of the alternative strategies suggested in the post would have more hope of success if undertaken right now than they would after next year’s election. And two of them – “a national convention and the withdrawal of Scottish representatives from Westminster” and “a concerted national campaign of civil disobedience” are ridiculous children’s fantasies anyway.
Nicola Sturgeon won’t even show up on an AUOB march, readers – do you seriously imagine for a solitary second that she’s going to front up a campaign of mass civil disobedience, for Heaven’s sake? And even if she did, do you think such a thing would sway those “persuadable soft No voters” that Ross Greer and Wee Ginger Dug are urging us to have at the forefront of our thinking?
(Remember, we’re endlessly being told by the great and the good of the movement’s “respectable” and “inclusive” wing that even those marches are horrible and awful and offputting to “ordinary” people – and they’re small, good-natured, localised gatherings that are over in a couple of hours. How would those people react to a vast campaign of nationwide resistance that would actually interfere with their day-to-day lives for an indefinite period just as they were finally getting back to normal after coronavirus?)
We’ve spent four years watching the SNP waste everyone’s time on a futile and – irony! – actually undemocratic attempt to overturn Brexit. They’ve just told us, openly and unambiguously, that they’re “parking” independence until not just the immediate crisis but the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic are over, which only a fool expects to be less than another five years but which in any event the FM herself has described as “for as far as we can see”.
That’s a wasted decade. How many more before we realise that the current leaders of the Yes movement have sold us a pup?
Wings Over Scotland has not given up on independence. It is still our goal, and that means pointing out every threat to it – whether from the enemy’s lines or our own.
Agreed.
Rev Stu
It’s Friday. I don’t need this.
How you can get through putting that together without a coronary, I’ll never know.
as for that wee pr*ck, Greer, he will likely slip through on the List in 2021 – for the SNP!
and for the Sturgeon Loyalists, well, you can lead a horse to water……….forever British – their cry seems to be ‘but we can moan like fuck….yay!’
Excellent blog. We are dealing with unimaginable & prolonged treachery.
I could weep. I’m not going to live long enough to see it, am I?
Well Stu,
If I can understand how D’Hondt works – why can’t they. If they can’t then why should I vote for someone that stupid?
I wonder what the party would do if the UK government decided to have a vote on Scottish independence and the outcome was in favour? Would the SNP say: “now is not the time!” or would the economic impact of covid not matter at that point?
I read and retweeted McAlpines column earlier. Couldn’t disagree with a thing, sadly. Unsurprised and depressed in equal measure. I should just beg you to kill me with the hammers now.
The thing is, dealing with the economic impact of Covid SURELY means independence? After all, why beg
I agree with every word of this. I’m done asking…we need to organise and take our independence forward…I’m 65 and have voted SNP since Margo MacDonald stood in the Govan by-election 1973 but I will NOT spend another minute of my life voting for, or ‘waiting patiently’ for the SNP while they ask Westminster nicely for our independence. If they had expended the same energy for independence that they did on Brexit, I believe we’d be there now. I’ve been stewing for a long time over this but these tactics, the GRA debate and the proposed ‘hate speech’ legislation have cemented my feelings about SNP strategies.
“If I can understand how D’Hondt works – why can’t they.”
They do understand it. There’s seem to be a strategy of using the term “splitting the Indy vote” at every opportunity. Their goal is to get it embedded into the head of Joe Public the same way as was done with the pensioners in 2014…. “Aye, if you vote Yes you’re gonna lose your pension”
Best bet is to respond with “consolidate”, or something similar, every time you respond to someone using the “split” word.
It does show they are getting worried, and we are only talking about the ISP, with god knows how many members, and that one man band party run by that muppet.
The thing is, dealing with the economic impact of Covid SURELY means independence? After all, why beg WM for the paltry power to borrow some money when we’re absolutely fkin loaded with the stuff??? Unfortunately we bizarrely hand most of it over to a bunch of crooks down south.
When the history of the world is written we’ll surely go down as the biggest bunch of suckers ever to walk the face of the planet.
Some good “cry me a river” stuff in the unionist comments in the article though.
So….what about a fundraiser for the Wings List Party?
Brilliantly put, to see Tories themselves today in articles supporting #BothVotesSNP tells it all.
Thought I was the only one tackling everyone promoting those on twitter, please join in, presumably they’ll do it on Facebook too…
I’m all for gaming the system. Let’s do it and kickstart the independence movement!
“They’ve” decided to park up Independence, the same way “they” decided to capitulate and throw away Scotland’s place in Europe, just as “they” decided they’d sell out Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty.
In who’s fucking name do “they” act? Because it’s not fucking mine.
Stu, is there ANY ideas you consider viable with regard to us getting independence?
There can’t be no hope for us. There just can’t.
Robin McAlpine’s article fits where we are now where independence is concerned unfortunately.
I used to think that the Yes movement was Charlie Brown being persuaded by Lucy Van Pelt (the SNP) that she wouldn’t snatch the independence ball away this time.
Now we’re at the stage where Charlie Brown is being told by Lucy that she will pull the ball away but have a kick at it anyway.
Of course, who would have thought Paul Kavanagh would have been at the front of the queue along with Peter A Bell.
It beggars belief really.
If the polls are at 54%… is that not a bit undemocratic?
Like GRA… “there is NO debate”…
Being elected on one thing and then obfuscating and not delivering…
Surely the SNP should change its constitution, otherwise it is misleading voters? To my mind, that is more of an issue for the Electoral Commission, than all this list party “cheating” debate.
I honestly sympathise with Covid-19 conspiracy theorists! Democracy gets put on hold while we deal with a virus which seems to be killing no Scots at all and certainly none at all beyond the age of 30… and how is Covid-19 stopping democracy? Surely democracy is more important even than (gasp!) public health…
My main gripe is that it is undemocratic NOT to allow the people of Scotland to decide, especially on the back as something so vital to the people as membership of the EU. I have always believed that the main problem with Sturgeon is that she is NOT democratic at all.
Just to add, Charlie Brown never ever got to kick that ball.
Saraband’s post there is a great laugh and easily turned on its head: ‘if there ends up being lots of list MSPs from a second pro-indy party, it’s because people voted for them’.
It’s actually dim to argue otherwise.
The point about Electoral Commission is key, as I’ve said repeatedly. Anything deemed permissible by the Commission cannot, by definition, be deemed ‘cheating’ or ‘gaming’ the system – which is why it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a degree of lobbying the Commission going on, at the moment.
On the UK government’s response, it’s endlessly shocking how many independence supporters seem happy to buy the line that its intransigence is ‘unsustainable’ & ‘cannot hold’. Tory MPs seem pretty confident it is & can, as the polling indicates.
Quick query on paragraph 6?: ‘so we know for certain that EVERY SINGLE PERSON who voted Green voted for another party‘. Theoretically, couldn’t you just vote in the regional list only, & abstain or spoil your ballot in the constituency vote? It would be the ‘ideologically purest’ Green thing to do. (Yes, I should probably know this).
The idea of giving your second vote to a different party is clearly NOT cheating by any standards or measurement and to suggest it is nothing but corrupt and dishonest.
Im yet to be fully convinced about this new pro Indy party however as their motivations appear to be a bit shaky and lacking in detail. It seems born from anger at gender identity issues rather than a greater desire for Independence relative to the SNP.
I dont know how the maths work with the de Hont system so I cannot comment on the practicality of giving your second vote to a second party but if the Maths is convincing and the second party is genuinely motivated first and foremost by Independence and not side issues that need to be dealt with on the OTHER SIDE of Independence then why not?
stu
re ross greer’s hypocrisy
the greens in england have pulled out of numerous by elections to give labour a better chance of winning
they have worked hand in foot with libdems and plaid and labour trying to game the system.
i never heard ross complain before
It might only be cheating if the SNP and the Greens don’t stand any candidates for the list vote. So we have 3 Unionist parties (Lab, Tory, Lib) and 3 Scottish parties (SNP, ISP, Greens) standing on the list, how is that cheating? Can someone in the anti-democracy wing of the SNP explain why this is wrong. The history of Irish Parliamentary Party might be worth a study.
Robin McAlpine’s article was thoroughly accurate & sadly predictable as it was depressing.
The UK’s GDP results came out this week to reveal a >20% plunge in economic output in April. The response in May was a miserable 1% rebound.
If we assume a recovery trajectory at the same rate BEFORE Covid, it will take about 13 years (2033) to get back where where were at the beginning of March 2020.
So if Sturgeon has decided to set aside any more thoughts about independence until the economy has recovered, that takes us well into the next decade. Independence is therefore dead in the water under Sturgeon despite having a vast army of politicians & bureaucrats at her disposal.
It’s fair to conclude then, that Sturgeon has been conning the Scottish electorate for at least six years with delays being blamed on one bullshit excuse after another; General Election, Brexit Referendum, Holyrood Election, Brexit exit date, Covid-19 & now, the economy.
It really is time to waken up folks. Yes, she’s been relatively good at the day to day job, reliably presenting Scotland’s response to a global pandemic in front of a useless cabal of one sided media.
But to defend her by claiming that somehow the entire apparatus of government & its state funded quangos are simply unable to consider & execute a strategic & tactical response to independence while mopping up the aftermath of a pandemic which in Scotland at least, is virtually over (99.95% of Scots have not died from Covid), is simply laughable.
“Vote for us one more time” Sturgeon is treating Scots like mugs. It’s time for a new independence party. It really is time for a plan B.
After 2014, it was obvious that another S30 Order or, indeed, any kind of referendum, would not be sanctioned by Westminster. Coupled with the fact that the breakdown of the results left a biter taste, a new, democratic, legal and legitimate form of leaving the Union should have been sought.
A PRE independence referendum was never going to work, not in Scotland, where vested interests and self interest far outweigh any political considerations, not anywhere, actually, if the truth be told, just as trying to prevent Brexit on a UK-wide level was never going to work: Scotland?; Quebec?; New Caledonia? Oh, and Catalunya?
None of them was successful, and studies done into the mature democracies, in particular, suggest that high votes for PRE independence referendums are all but impossible because of the political structures pertaining in most.
So, we either declare independence on the strength of winning all elections since 2007, on the added strength of several active mandates and on the strength of several polls putting independence ahead (for anyone not conversant with international law, this would be enough for international recognition) or we could address a question to the Floor of the General Assembly of the UN on theTreaty and our status within the Union, so-called, with a strong case against England-as-the-UK blocking all and any means to a referendum or any other route within its constitutional jurisdiction, or should I say, the constitutional jurisdiction it THINKS it has. The GA could then be asked to remit a question to the ICJ (international court).
By the way, in trying to say it would be a ‘democratic disgrace’ is Mhairi Hunter trying to pave the way to a ‘you didn’t vote for us, so you’re no’ getting your indy cos it’s cheating no’ to vote for us! We’re the gatekeepers!’ line of argument using that as an excuse? Cos that’s how it reads.
It is quite funny that both the unionists and the nationalists think you will divide and unite the nationalist vote.
What’s the chance of them changing the Holyrood voting rules to you have to stand in the seat to get standing in the list.
I have to say I think if we don’t get a vote before brexit there will not be one.
An interesting Tour d’Horizon of the place we find ourselves.
Nobody can blame Nicola Sturgeon of being coy – she has told us explicitly what she intends to do, and unless she is being too clever by half not saying what she actually means, then I’m afraid what she intends to do, does not fit in with the “Independence just around the corner/don’t rock the boat now” fantasies.
And as for economics – a plank of the “just around the corner” argument is the eagerly expected Brexit economic catastrophe and “omnishambles” that is going to have No’s turning into Yes’s in their droves.
For God’s sake people just look around you, there is an economic reset of enormous and unknown consequences taking place in front of us! Frankly will we even notice Brexit in January?
Remember when the SNP MP’s sent PM Cruella de Ville a letter asking which she preferred: an orderly s30 or a plebiscitary 2021 election? They got no answer, presumably because her spies told her they didn’t have NS’s backing.
In fact NS went out her way back in January IIRC to rule making 2021 an indyref out. It isn’t happening as you say.
NS is a problem & we can only hope she is waved off into the sunset by a grateful nation as a result of the Salmond Inquiry along with her husband enabling a clearout of th unenthusiastic for indy Woke entryists. If that doesn’t happen we’re fucked.
In that scenario I might just sell up and go back to NZ where I grew up to live in self confident independent nation with a leader who can do multiple things at once. She is rather admired by our FM who has it seems only learned superficial lessons from her.
Jacinda Ardern runs a coalition govt of an indy nation with Winston Peters in it, has been doing daily Covid briefings (which Nicola stole wholesale) & is a mother as well even if her partner is fantastic & the Speaker will do childcare in the chamber during sessions.
It seems to me that Nicola is trying to tell us she is not up to running an independent nation. In which case we should get a leader who is and who wants to be FM of iScotland.
J Galt:
COVID is to take the blame for all Brexit effects (in the UK).
My vote is my vote – it belongs to no-one but me. I want independence and I want to safeguard sex based rights. If I want to give the list vote to a party that has similar goals – that’s not cheating the system, that’s exercising my legal rights.
Constituency vote SNP, List Vote Green -that’s okay, according to them
Constituency vote SNP, List vote a pro indy pro women party – you terrible evil cheaters. Aye Right.
Ok I’m one of the nicola fan club.tho I do like the list idea
sadly it was robin Mcalpines piece that really has me wondering what’s actually going on here.first its Nicolas statement of when covid and the economics are sorted.then Robin’s piece.now we find out that it was Nicolas idea to put in a retrospective law that trapped alex.and shown to a complainer before it became law.i thing the next few weeks there will be a drip drip of unsavoury facts of most if not all in the top tier of the snp to have committed unjust acts to implicate an innocent person .just a couple of days ago I would not have conternanced anything that would put independence in pearl.reluctently I think in light of what is coming out now we have to consider weather nicola is now a barrier to independence.looking ahead the yes movement is not the snp. its bigger than that.have to hope the people of Edinburgh help us in bringing Joanne cherrie back from westminster into hollyrood.alex needs to return to the front line.joanne alex and Kenny need to bring back the snp that we thought we had and voted for.nicola and the rest could have been a major figure in the history of scotland sadly it now looks like infamy.she has been very badly advised.
My major problem with the vote splitting plan is the fact that it requires more than active internet posters to make it work …. as RISE found out in 2016. It requires hundreds of thousands of ordinary voters who have no interest in the passions and obsessions of political bloggers and posters (like me …. before some one mentions irony.
With the Green vote failing, it will only take a couple of percentage points off the SNP List vote to possibly gift the Unionists a majority in Holyrood. As that is all the Pop-Ups can realistically expect to get from this vote splitting ruse, the risk is too great. The arithmetic is flawless granted …. but real people will be voting not numbers in an electoral predictor. The vast majority are unlikely to be aware, never mind on-board, with the plan.
Funny how the SNP diehards and comfy seat crew only got excited about this AFTER Colette Walker had actually registered a party with the Electoral Commission, before that everyone promoting this strategy like the Rev and myself at a local level were just dismissed as a loony or a conspiracy theorist (Peter A Bell called me one this morning).
Now that the ISP are actually registered, they can be seen as a threat, and if the comfy crew are threatened, then there’s a simple 3 step strategy to preserve the status quo and put the noisy kids in the corner.
1) Put the concept of CHEATING all over the place, through social and MSM channels.
2) Get respected experts like Mr Curtice to point out the POINTLESSNESS of this strategy.
3) Create several other list parties to DILUTE the vote and underline the SPLITTING meme.
Unfortunately, I think these strategies will work unless the movement and the list party are LED and DRIVEN by the one man they’ve already failed to muzzle and sideline.
The YES movement can continue to stomp our feet but nothing will change. Many in the movement believe the SNP need to be telt…but that’s been tried and has failed for 6 years.
They need to be shown, as pointed out in the article, AUOB have done a good job at showing the support to the administration and Nicola still hasn’t shown up. Whatever list party we can all unite behind and gain 30 seats will also SHOW them and as main opposition can keep their feet to the fire.
For this to work well, we just need to keep hoping after the virus passes and the book is published, that the one man who can deliver can step back up to the plate….
In the meantime us small time lads will just keep pushing.
What an eye opener.
The Greens get me so angry Rev.
What is the purpose of voting Greens?
You can’t get a fag paper between the SNP and Greens. They are all for Devolution and not Independence.
So angry with Greer and he needs to lose that comfy seat in Holyrood.
SNP or ISP. Now which party do the unionists perceive as a threat?
History tends to repeat.
Salmond now has to do the (metaphorically speaking) Bruce dirking the Comyn, tae Sturgeon.
Scotlands future depends on it.
Necessary edit please Rev:
Could you change “bee’s bawbag” to “baby bee’s bawbag”?
I think this is the perfect time for this essential phrase to enter Scotland’s political lexicon and it fits better with the subject of the article.
You’re welcome Scotland…
This piece by RevSTU, will go down in history. It is a concise, accurate description of the complete and total lack of ambition of the current SNP leadership.
It is like the SNP cannot seem to think outside the constraints of London rule and Westminster’s shackles. Too timid, too afraid, in case they upset any of the media. How could they ever lead us to independence, even if they wanted to (and they don’t). Independence supporters have been taken for fools by the SNP, their votes taken for granted.
Alasdair Gray wrote “work as if you live in the early days of a better nation”. It is written on the outside walls of the Scots Parliament in Edinburgh. Oh how I wish the current SNP leadership had the ability and imagination to actually do so.
As others on here, and elsewhere keep pointing out, time is running out. We do not have another two, five or ten years. Westminster, under the control of the unelected and unaccountable Tory sociopath Dominic ‘let them die’ Cummings, is one a one track path to closing the Scots parliament. Look at what he has already done with Whitehall in London, the civil service, that bastion of the very English ‘British’ establishment. Make no mistake, it is coming. And the SNP are asleep.
So, this article by RevStu, will be part of the history of Scotland, in a chapter called ‘How the SNP and its leaders betrayed Scotland and its people, when they needed them most’.
Scotland needs an Alex Salmond. Someone with fire in their belly, who genuinely wants independence, rather than just talking about it. A REAL leader. Seriously, any takers? Time is of the essence.
Having read Robin’s piece this morning and then this from Stuart I think I may as well vote tory 1/2 at the Holyrood 2021 election. There seems to be more chance of achieving independence for #Scotland by doing so. I fucking despair.
Johnny@2.27pm
Well whether that’s the case or not we’re in for fun times ahead – on a personal note I learned I may be made redundant next week – and the politicians (all of them) are digging us deeper into the hole on a daily basis.
That’s the reason I left the SNP last week because whoever Nicola Sturgeon is working for it ain’t me, or any other ordinary Scots for that matter.
Some might say it was cheating to be elected after garnering votes from people on a manifesto commitment of allowing Scotland the opportunity to determine our future after a significant material change in circumstance in this parliamentary term, only to renege on this commitment… 🙁
It’s got to the point I’ve written and spoken the word “mandate” so many times recently that google algorithms have picked up on this and started suggesting male dating sites I should visit!
Sheesh, time for a drink me thinks! 🙂
Yella pens, get yer yella pens here, twa fur a pound!
_____I’M WITH_____
____JD N’ COLA___
Given support for the proposed GRA amendments requires a rejection of the natural sciences, and insists humanity is not part of nature, the Scottish Greens can’t really claim any political relevance, IMHO. These, so called, environmentalists, support policy that would promote patriarchy and harm the environment.
Psychology of Women Quarterly, 1999
Existential Phenomenology and Feminist Research: The Exploration and Exposition of Women’s Lived Experiences
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1999.tb00349.x
Published March 2020.
The SNP in Disarray: https://wp.me/p4fd9j-ouY
Just read Robin McAlpine’s piece…stand-out phrase..”Another five years of the Charlotte Street Nationalists is just another giant lurch towards a Charlotte Street Scotland”…ain’t that the truth…these people are not on your side…sniffing independence in the wind, they’re carving up the pie before it’s even served…what we’ll have to make do with is crumbs from the masters’ table…that is carbs NOT protein. Got it now peasants?!!
So, if next years Holyrood election is to be the litmus test on having another Independence referendum, just how are the unionist parties, campaigners and media going to react ?
Easy, it will be a full on scathing attack on the SNP and the Yes movement like we have not witnessed. You thought, 2012-2014 was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
All bets will be off and anything will be done to stop an SNP/pro Independence majority, and stuff what the Electoral Commission thinks (remember how effective they were with ‘The Vow’ breaking purdah in 2014 – yeah, me neither)
Unionist candidates will be slashed in certain constituencies – labour voters will be ‘persuaded’ to vote for tories to ‘save the union’, the Lib Dems may choose to become a list only party. They will employ every and any tactic to defeat Independence candidates.
And then what will we be left with. James Kelly, Mike Small, Mhairi Hunter and the gang all scratching their heads wondering ‘ how did that happen ?’ but not moaning about unionist tactics – oh no, it’ll still be the fault of evil Wings and the cult.
Meanwhile the likes of Kenny Farq. and the unionist press will be down the pub laughing their asses off.
My take on things, having a new Independence list party may likely be a necessity to balance what’s coming down the turnpike, but of course by then, it will be too late. If it’s going to happen, we need to step up and take the initiative.
Mhairi Hunter talking about gaming the system is unfair to Unionist voters. I just about tell off my chair reading that.
That in a nutshell is what we are now trying to overcome.
After everything Indy supporters have to fight against and are still being denied by Unionist parties, that takes the biscuit.I
New party required.
A plebiscite election after the scheduled 2021 Holyrood election is doable (just) but it requires commitment and that is the nub of the issue. A plebiscite election wouldn’t be “just after” Holyrood 2021, the mechanics would take time, so more likely May 2022. This would have the advantage of not scunnering the electorate.
Scenario: a plurality of Indy parties takes Holyrood by a landslide, Sturgeon asks for a S30 order and is refused, Sturgeon shrugs her shoulders and says “better luck next time”.
The solution is to remove Sturgeon. Cherry barely bothers to hide her contempt for the FM and Cherry is intent on gaining a seat in Holyrood in 2021. Let’s see if Sturgeon and Murrell can kibosh her ambitions.
Seems to me the so called independence parties SNP and Greens are trolling us!
Give us your votes, we’ll throw you a bone on the remotest of remote chance of a mibbies a lame push for independence. What will we call it – yeah let’s call it a ‘mandate’ that’s worked for ho hum about four elections. That’ll do.
Independence voters – know your place – who u gonna vote for anyways? We’ve got this well sown up. Just give us your votes and keep us in power.
Vote for us to do more of the same – fucking nothing!
We are screwed well and truly, I’m 61 and now what’s the point in even voting for SNP 1 never mind 2. Thinking it’s time to give the Scots full on Tory or labour see how they fucking like it.
As indicated by the polls you released last week, the nuclear option of the Alex Salmond led/backed list party looks like our best hope of a game changer now.
Get Salmond.
for the peanuts fans, upthread –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4-wJ3zmlXQ
They are brickin’ it – shiting themselves. Which is a good thing.
A “one issue party” headed by a known, respected figure, with clear objectives and no time for nonsense, hobby horses, or manifestos written while on pride marches or BLM protests – could work.
Until Scotland is independent, there is no left and no right, only nationalist or unionist. When we are a normal country again, we can revert to the normal considerations of normal politics.
One useful tactic the new party could adopt would be – a proposal to decide “controversial issues” by means of referendums; let the people have at it. Thus we could introduce “direct democracy” as the norm, into our politics. And it keeps us all honest – who can be trusted once they get their noses in the trough?
– lobbies and professional activists will be horrified by this though, which is again, a good thing; their raison d’etre is about getting UNPOPULAR things into law which favour their clients; they are a cancer in politics.
“roadhouse!” – indeed.
The SNP should change their name, for they may be Scottish and National and a party, but they are using their position under false pretences.
I just knew that the major influx of members after Indy1 would contain elements placed by the State to disrupt a future Indyref opportunity..
Well, I think they won that round, but this fight isn’t over.
I’m one of the worlds’conspiracy nuts’ lol. but if the British parties in Scotland are against the List parties..then I’m all for them! However, the people looking for my 2nd vote have to be up for the job if they get a seat. I’m not voting for any drama queens or me me me MSPs..we have enough of them as is!
Just one of the many annoying aspects of the ‘Don’t split the YES vote..’ brigade, are the ordinary voters. I suspect that lots of them are ex Labour who, having been reamed by the Plastic Socialist Party for decades, now desire to be taken for fools by the SNP.
PS: Can someone have a word in Alex Salmond’s ear to get back into politics and start a true independence list party?
Another brick removed from the wall.
I know the Sturgeon fans will say, it’s the Herald.
Miss A had access before publication – let that sink in.
http://archive.vn/y6rq8#selection-1679.3-1679.159
I don’t think Mhairi Hunter is suitably qualified to advise on Scotland’s democracy. Doesn’t she support the GRA amendments?
Existential-Phenomenological Psychology
https://www.seattleu.edu/artsci/map/prospective-students/existential-phenomenological-psychology/
With you 100%.
Agree with this and MacAlpine’s article. They won’t get another vote out of me. A shower of charlatans.
In 2007 the SNP had about 32% of the vote and independence was polling near 20%. With SNP support now at 55% and support for independence at 54%, its a bit of a stretch for folk on this thread to effectively claim they have failed and are in their death throes. Are people getting a nose bleed or something. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and all that.
No one’s telling me how to vote. Independence party list vote for me. Hopefully Ross will be out on his ear in my area. I’m not being stupid enough to vote for the woman hating green party on the list vote again.
its fine to say that what nicola meant, in my opinion, is…….
its another to say, Nicola literally said, “You. Are. Not. Getting. A. Referendum. In. The. Next. Five. Years” when she said no such thing.
Nicola has parked indy until the covid virus is dealt with, no question. quite right too. even AUOB have cancelled any marches until after phase 4 is finished, probably towards the end of August 2 weeks after the kids go back to school
the unionists are desperate to get back to rubbishing the constitutional question, so she shuts them down by talking only about covid. but we are now down to 1 death a week, the crisis is almost over. relax, enjoy yer summer holidays, pubs are open again
Confused
British constitutionalism is “political” in nature, not “legal”, so it obtains its’ legal FORCE through adherence to legal convention rather than coherent, codified, law. Direct democracy doesn’t really work unless there is a functional constitution that sets out codified rights and obligations (see Brexit).
Law versus Democracy?
Democratic Constitutionalism and the Role of Judges in the
European Union
https://ecpr.eu/Filestore/PaperProposal/0b5929b5-7733-4ba2-bace-d82a8edc9274.pdf
MeBungoPony
‘In 2007 the SNP had about 32% of the vote and independence was polling near 20%. With SNP support now at 55% and support for independence at 54%, its a bit of a stretch for folk on this thread to effectively claim they have failed and are in their death throes. Are people getting a nose bleed or something. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and all that.’
Brilliant, leading in the polls means we’ve won.
Christ on a bike
Muscleguy says:
Remember when the SNP MP’s sent PM Cruella de Ville a letter asking which she preferred: an orderly s30 or a plebiscitary 2021 election? They got no answer, presumably because her spies told her they didn’t have NS’s backing.
—————————–
no, i dont remember this, did you imagine it?
—————————
In fact NS went out her way back in January IIRC to rule making 2021 an indyref out. It isn’t happening as you say.
——————————-
did she? link please. even if she did, in jan we just had a vote which garnished 45% support from the people of scotland. its only in the last 2 weeks that we now have polls confirming support is at 54%.
the prerequisite for turning an election into a plebiscite is gaining more than 50%+ support. it is only now that this has become an option
Yon Saraband lad didn’t hang about, he’s assimilated faster than a very fast thing.
Is he in Alyn’s circle?
It’s almost squirm inducing, watching the arses being covered. Embarrassing.
I suppose that the list is our equivalent to the Lords.
Tow the line…
Muscleguy says:
Jacinda Ardern runs a coalition govt of an indy nation with Winston Peters in it, has been doing daily Covid briefings (which Nicola stole wholesale) & is a mother as well………..
———————–
🙁
There was never going to be a democratic / parliamentary route to independence anyway.
Looking at it from a positive perspective for a change. I see that penny has dropped for Stu and many other indy supporters.
The SNP policy of independence via Holyrood indyref was always wishful thinking at best.
It’s chief architect, tried it, failed / got conned and he and Scotland paid the price. He escaped the rest of his life in jail by a baw hair at huge emotional and financial cost. As for Scotland, us? The Imperial Prison walls are being built higher by the day: We are in the Union At Her Majesty’s Pleasure.
It’s progress that Sturgeon has at least stopped pretending that she’s gonnae deliver an indyref or independence.
Ideas of List parties delivering indy or creating pressure for indy are continued delusion.
Ending the Union / Scotland’s colonial subjugation would be revolutionary. Revolutionary changes require a revolution.
Revolutionaries like Craig Murray and Alex Salmond are paying the price while the rest of us cower.
Colonial administrators and career politicians in the employ of the Imperial power do not normally lead revolutions: they suppress them.
That is the role being fulfilled by the SNP and Greens etc.
A wiser man than me once said: You cannot serve two masters. The career politicians’ master is Boris, not the people of Scotland.
Until the grassroots catch up and accept the SNP and Greens have become the enemies of independence, Scottish independence is impossible. There are signs that is happening….
Like another poster mentioned maybe the enquiry into the scottish gov. handling of the Salmond episode may force Nicola into resigning. That may be our last small chance of getting somebody to take over who will fulfil the manifesto pledges of the SNP gov. preferably before Jan.
John Thomson says:
Thinking it’s time to give the Scots full on Tory or labour see how they fucking like it.
————
yeah, that’ll work, great idea john 🙁
tartanfever says:
Brilliant, leading in the polls means we’ve won.
—————-
no, it means we are winning, somthing we havent done before
tartanfever
“Brilliant, leading in the polls means we’ve won.
Christ on a bike”
A bit rich considering the whole vote splitting ruse is based around the SNP having a massive lead in the polls. If that slips, then even the theoretical advantage of the ruse falls apart and becomes a very real danger to the whole independence movement.
There was never going to be a democratic / parliamentary route to independence anyway.
Looking at it from a positive perspective for a change. I see that the penny has dropped for Stu and many other indy supporters.
The SNP policy of independence via Holyrood indyref was always wishful thinking at best.
It’s chief architect, tried it, failed / got conned and he and Scotland paid the price. A stitch up. He escaped the rest of his life in jail by a whisker at huge emotional and financial cost. As for Scotland, us? The Imperial Prison walls are being built higher by the day: We are in the Union At Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Purring Betty.
It’s progress that Sturgeon has at least given up pretending that she’s gonnae deliver an indyref or independence.
Ideas of List parties delivering indy or creating pressure for indy are continued delusion.
Ending the Union / Scotland’s colonial subjugation would be revolutionary. Revolutionary changes require a revolution.
Revolutionaries like Craig Murray and Alex Salmond are paying the price while the rest of us cower. The potential leaders of revolution have been targeted.
Colonial administrators and career politicians in the employ of the Imperial power do not normally lead revolutions: they suppress them.
That is the role being fulfilled by Scotland’s MPs and MSPs.
A wiser man than me once said: You cannot serve two masters. The career politicians’ master is Boris, not the people of Scotland.
Until the grassroots catch up and accept the SNP and Greens have become the enemies of independence, Scottish independence is impossible. There are signs that is happening: that is why the SNP and Greens are attacking indy supporters.
Another piece of genius Stu.Many thanks for doing the “heavy lifting”.
Obviously its becoming clear to the “establishment” their “jaikets on the shoogly”.
Its not cheating, if its legal for them, its legal for us.
Anyone arguing with that fact, shouldn’t be left without adult supervision in the playpen.
Cheers Stu.
Only the last two lines of this piece are preventing me from chucking myself off a tall building.
Raging at the SNP. Brexit should have made independence inevitable but they’ve pished it up a wall.
Was looking at who was funding the SNP and came across this from 2017 (Tom Gordon possible bs warning).
‘New Electoral Commission figures show the SNP had the lowest donations of any major party in the first quarter of 2017, at £3300, and this came was from one of its own MPs.
At the same time, the SNP was second only to Labour in the amount it received in public funds, banking £298,635 in “Short money” from the House of Commons.
Short money is given to all opposition parties to help their costs and is based on MP numbers, so if the SNP loses seats next month this funding stream will decline’.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15304613.snp-relying-on-public-funds-as-big-donors-dry-up/
SNP part funded by the UK? Would certainly explain a lot.
Then there’s the salaries, expenses and pensions of SNP MP’s & SNP’s presumably paid for out of taxes. A tidy sum no doubt and hard for many to replicate in the real world.
As usual, ‘follow the money’ provides a lot of clarity. The current SNP are patronisingly acting as masters of our future. They seem to have forgotten that their comfy positions are conditional. Maybe a looming P45 may help them grasp what the majority of people in Scotland actually want them to do.
A restructured SNP may be the best option right now but hopefully another exists if not.
@stu
The Greens didn’t stand any constituency candidates in West Scotland (they fought just three of Scotland’s 73 constituencies
————————–
but they did stand in edin central
tory ruth davidson = 10,399
snp alison dickie = 9,789
green alison Johnstone = 4,644
lab sarah boyack = 7,546
lib Hannah Bettsworth= 1,627
maybe this is why i dont think folk will vote green on the list next time.
tactical vote eh ross, who wad a’ thunk it eh
I don’t expect to hear anything substantive until after the Holyrood inquiry.
Campaigning during a pandemic would be stupid. The voters will desert you.
If the main aim is to win a majority in a referendum then steering a calm course through the pandemic is the right thing to do. It saves hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives. There will be a lot of people unemployed, businesses bankrupt and poverty rising. That will have to be dealt with too.
With a rabidly hostile media the SNP leadership have to demonstrate that they actually understand these issues and have the will to fix them. Nicola Sturgeon’s reported responses to journalist questions could just as easily be framed as “keep calm and carry on”.
The best way forward IMO would be to stay in the EU, cancel our subscription to Westminster and produce a 4 Phase route map out.
But a few hurdles have to be got over first. The pandemic, the fallout, the Holyrood inquiry and Alex Salmond’s response.
Oh and the voters have to vote YES.
Are we there yet?
Wow. They really hate you, don’t they?
I don’t see how getting rid of the most popular leader in Scottish political history while she is playing a blinder amidst the worse crisis in living memory will win waverers across to independence. If anything it will just make them think again about supporting a movement that would make such a bonkers move.
Schrodiners Cat @3.48pm
“Nicola has parked indy until the covid virus is dealt with, no question. quite right too.”
Really? Who knows when Covid will be dealt with, years / decades/ never? And so independence takes a back seat?
Now is the perfect time to push for self determination – a public health crisis playing out for all to see, with all the constraints that Scotland faces in not being able to fully make it’s own decisions.
I have said this before, COVID has not stopped the rest world in playing politics. Why is it that only Scotland has stopped pursuing political objectives. Seems like COVID is being used as a smoke-screen to me for her inaction on independence.
We are fast facing a very likely ‘no deal’ Brexit. COVID will still be a global issue in Dec 2020. She needs to see the woods from the trees. If she can only handle one crisis at a time then she is not leader material.
COVID should have been the issue that galvanized the SNP in pushing for independence not running away from it.
I’ve put on my clairvoyant specs to see ahead and I can see a crunch time coming. Oooh.. Sorry, can’t see any further than than – all is cloudy in the formless void of the future. (Cue sinister, mysterious music..)
That’s all I’ve got.
(Going back to that withered old creature who sold them to me. Absolutely useless. I think she also has a crystal ball going cheap, a bit cracked but so was the old crone. That’s what happens, I suppose, when you walk into one of those ‘I-saw-you-coming-shops’).
What’s much more concerning is the underlying meaning of all the protests from the SNP/Green payroll, apparatchiks hoping for their own seat on the gravy train one day,
———–
since the snp won only one list msp seat, maree tod, in 2016, i think it is the green payroll which is complaining loudest. by even the simplist calculation, a new list party condemns the greens to oblivion
the snp are right to reject it, if they condoned it out right, the electoral commission would intervene
this way, the snp cannot be accused of gaming the system, the new indy list party is nothing to do with them.
hint, that probably wont stop the unionists blaming the snp !
Me Bungo Pony
‘A bit rich considering the whole vote splitting ruse is based around the SNP having a massive lead in the polls. If that slips, then even the theoretical advantage of the ruse falls apart and becomes a very real danger to the whole independence movement.’
Here the message loud and clear. You must vote for the SNP and only the SNP.
If their vote is slipping, maybe it’s due to unpopular policies or unfulfilled electoral promises in which case, many voters will look to park their vote elsewhere. That’s politics.
I would go further and argue that the rise in support for Independence is absolutely not merited with the actions of the Scottish Government, but rather the woeful shambles of Johnson, Brexit and Covid 19. It’s an unearned dividend.
900,000 list votes for 4 MSP’s. That’s hardly capitalising on the support. The whole point is to maximise the vote. What you people don’t seem to understand is that the vote is already split by our electoral system. If you dominate the first, you won’t dominate the latter, and frankly, if the SNP lose so much support they don’t dominate the constituency vote, then they probably don’t deserve to be re-elected.
With Covid ongoing and Brexit about to happen at the end of the year, anything other than a whomping constituency win for the SNP would be one of the greatest collapses in UK politics.
I see the greens a bit like fleas and quite willing attach themselves to anything.
Is the grand plan to clear out all the troublemakers, awkward gits and ‘radicals’ (i.e. Us lot) from the party?
The unwillingness to engage with the problem, and the lack of constructive anger and action, is perhaps appealing to the person who doesn’t care about politics, but should we be realistic and accept the SNP is no longer, if it ever was, a party of those with any real desire for the scale of (near revolutionary) change we will need to become the Country we want and need to be?
I long to be wrong, and that this is all twitterage, but what is it going to take to make our Government fight back?
How many insults, how many needless deaths? How much humiliation and disdain is being ‘nice’ worth?
In 2013 Nicola was very clear that it was the SNP view that the 2014 Referendum was a ‘once in a generation’ event before giving her personal opinion that it was probably a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’. It is therefore really surprise that neither Nicola nor the SNP want anything to do with IndyRef2.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/features/uk-politics-24147303/24147303
Go to 4.50 mins to hear Nicola’s opinion on a further referendum.
Rev, I got a fright when I read your header thinking that you were considering giving up on independence but you clarified in your excellent article that you will continue working for us. It’s quite depressing the state of the SNP at the moment with some of the pathetic representatives at Westminster. The arrogance because they’re riding high in the polls and thinking it’s down to them when it is in fact because we all want to get out of this shitshow that is the UK and we know they are our only way to get there. The wonderful positive feeling we had prior to the last Indyref is no more and it’s not just because of Covid. Who knows what will happen in the next few months but it looks like the U.K. is in a very bad place just now.
Muscleguy
The FM needs to be seen as competent and caring, even if that means she is not defending Scotland from political expunction.
Hegel Bulletin Volume 34 Issue 1
Hegel, Human Rights, and Political Membership
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hegel-bulletin/article/hegel-human-rights-and-political-membership1/6ED29436EACF9259E8B500E118E8DD88/core-reader
@tartanfever
“If their vote is slipping, maybe it’s due to unpopular policies or unfulfilled electoral promises”
SNP vote slipping? hahaha You not paying attention to politics in Scotland much at the minute are you? LOL
Scozzie says:
Really? Who knows when Covid will be dealt with, years / decades/ never? And so independence takes a back seat?
————–
i’d hazard a guess, the end of august, after phase 4 is over and we can go on a AUOB march, vote etc.
—————–
Now is the perfect time to push for self determination – a public health crisis playing out for all to see,
———————-
its nicola’s responsable handling of the crisis which is pushing up support for indy. bear in mind, 50%+ is required to win
———————-
I have said this before, COVID has not stopped the rest world in playing politics.
———————
the rest of the world dont have england for a neighbour
————–
We are fast facing a very likely ‘no deal’ Brexit.
—————
who’s this “we”? you live in austrailia!!
sniff, i smell something burning on the barby,
Alasdair Stirling
How does that ‘once in a generation’ argument, stand up in international law?
tartanfever says:
Here the message loud and clear. You must vote for the SNP and only the SNP.
——————–
only on the constituency paper,
kenny macaskill snp says you can vote for a new indy party on the list. (i dont think he likes the greens much 🙂 )
tartanfever:
“Here the message loud and clear. You must vote for the SNP and only the SNP”.
If you want an independent Scotland then …. yes. If you want to indulge your own misgivings about the SNP and vote for a Pop-Up that has little to no chance of doing anything other than undermine the SNP …. fine. On your head be it. I’ll continue to support the party that has taken Scotland to the edge of independence from virtually nowhere 15 years ago. Hopefully this little self defeating rebellion wont waste all those years of toil.
Alasdair Stirling says:
In 2013 Nicola was very clear that it was the SNP view that the 2014 Referendum was a ‘once in a generation’ event before giving her personal opinion that it was probably a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’.
————————-
in 2013, i thought this too, perhaps i should have consulted the entrails and previewed what a shit show the uk would have become in 2020?
i might have had a different opinion
John Mcphail @1:48pm
“Consolidate” as a response to the “split” problem does not really work as it just reminds people of the original objection. So you need to reframe things in your favour. How about calling it:
a pro-Independence vote
voting Yes for Independence
voting Yes for Scotland
a vote for change
The “change” thing has probably been done to death already but all the others work well. The idea is that you take any positive message and make it your own. That immediately frames the accusers as being against the thing that you are for. Any variation on this works and it should, if done right, make them defensive with no effort at all.
Personally I like the “pro-Independence vote” since it turns tables on the accuser and plants the seed that maybe, just maybe the SNP are not really all that interested in the i-word after all.
Trump is just another buffoon like Boris, but with access to a comb, however he does this framing thing rather well. Cummings does it too but his comb days are long gone.
vote for a Pop-Up that has little to no chance of doing anything other than undermine the SNP.
—————————–
yeah, its a risk, but with polls showing snp on 55% and since the new indy list parties all confirming they wont stand in the south region, the 1 snp list msp elected in 2016 with 850k votes, (who is unlikely to win again with the snp at 55% in the polls, the new list party may not win many seats, but the risk to snp list seats is vanishingly small.
maybe its worth a punt?
Timing might be crucial but rather than cheating with just one new list party, SNP/YES should unashamedly endorse new left AND right wing indy parties, and be despicable enough to offer places reasonably high on the list to hitherto respected or prominent unionists, with a view to pinching votes from liblabcon directly and paving the way for the future.
Adam Tomkins stepping down
when the water reaches the top deck……follow the rats 🙂
stuart mctavish
not a stupid idea, there are many new indy list parties, lets hope they can come to some agreement, eg, stand in separate regions etc to maximise the vote
So as the only Yes party that currently has list seats and has the potential to win more, why not support the Greens rather than creating yet another independence party (YAIP) to split that vote further?
If your key aim is to game the system to simply win more Indy seats, why not put your full weight behind the greens?
Stuart MacKay says:
“Personally I like the “pro-Independence vote” since it turns tables on the accuser and plants the seed that maybe, just maybe the SNP are not really all that interested in the i-word after all”.
Unionists must be absolutely wetting themselves at this stuff. Just as they seem utterly defeated …. up pop their saviours in supposedly indy garb. The sheer irony of it must have them clinking their champagne glasses and scoffing the vol au vaunts in delight.
Sadly the SNP have run out of steam, happens sometimes in politics.
The SNP are still the only real show in town regarding independence.
A kick up the arse is needed and I do think a second list party is a good idea but only one.
O/T some really good news for a change:
PRINCESS Beatrice has today married Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi at a secret Royal Wedding in Windsor the Queen, 94, and Duke of Edinburgh, 99, joined Prince Andrew, 60, to celebrate.
That’s nice, glad to see prince Andrew getting out for some fresh air, must be unpleasant being stuck indoors all the time hiding away. Believe some folk wearing suits and shades want a word Andy my boy.
Anyway I’m so excited by another royal wedding I’ve been giggling like a big girl.
What are the team on here doing to celebrate?
Robin McApline’s article is brutal but the truth IMO.
Schrodingers Cat 4.36pm
who’s this “we”? you live in austrailia!!
sniff, i smell something burning on the barby,
I use ‘we’ as Scotland is my home country (where I lived until age 35) and all my family still live there. Do you want me to use ‘them’ instead?
Are you from the camp of you don’t live here so you have no say, no opinion, STFU? Tell that to Stu then!
Strangely no information on BBC auntie wie a kilt website on the daily corona virus situation. That’s a first. 🙁
Today’s figs: Hospital deaths in the table / country.
Scotland…….today…..*00…….Total…*2491…*SUN
Wales……….today……01…….Total….1546…BBC
N.Ireland……today……00…….Total…..556…BBC
England……..today…..*16…….Total..*29160…*SUN
======================================================
UK………….today…..114…….Total…45233…WMGov.
There are a lot of people dying outwith hospitals appearing daily boosting the UK total. 🙁
Schrodingers Cat
And just for the record… I still have 6 years left to be able to vote in elections as an overseas resident – so I still have some skin in the game!
Mike Lothian says:
So as the only Yes party that currently has list seats and has the potential to win more, why not support the Greens rather than creating yet another independence party (YAIP) to split that vote further?
————
because i campaigned har in 2016 to get folk to vote snp1green2. any success was indeed limited. what i failed to understand is that the snp voters on the list were never going to back the greens in any great numbers.
in the last 4 years, i have been convinced that they are even less likely to do so now.
‘it’s not easy to force a Holyrood election before it’s due. It requires a clear majority’.
How much of a majority?
I’m guessing that enough votes for another pro-indy party on the List vote would make this within reach?
One poll prediction recently showed that, if the SNP polling intention held up they would scoop up 75 constituency seats plus some list seats. It depends on the percentages. Can’t remember where I saw this, sorry.
But is it not reasonable to wait until nearer the time before committing to SNP/SNP or SNP/ISP (in my case). A lot can change before May 2021.
Another post on the numbers would be good if there is anyone brave enough to do it. Gavin?
@Jason Smoothpiece,
Putting my hands in a blender. Less painful!!
@scozzie
Are you from the camp of you don’t live here so you have no say, no opinion, STFU? Tell that to Stu then!
———————
i do think folk who dont live in scotland shouldnt get a vote. i was born in leith but no longer live there, what right do i have to tell their councillors how they should spend the council tax raised there?
last time i looked, voting criteria in indyref1 was based on residency except for a few well attested exceptions, eg military personnel stationed overseas.
Me Bungo Pony,
“We’re riding high in the polls and that proves what we’re doing is correct so we can do anything we want including dropping independence as a priority any time soon”.
That’s the sentiment that sums the situation up for me but it’s not very snappy, but how about “Eat your cereal!” or ‘Get back in your box!l or what about an actual quote that Robin McAlpine links to “they can shut up or fuck off”.
Now of course, you are free to interpret the inaction of the SNP regarding independence as frontal assault on the Union that will free Scotland imminently but I would have to admit that I don’t have the same level of faith as you.
I see westminster is planning to review how they count the deaths!!
Soon England will have no Covid deaths
BBC as usual silent on numbers
Lots of bad USA and Brazil
@scozzie
i seem to remember stu saying that he wouldnt suggest who people who lived in scotland should vote for because he didnt live here
It’s complex!
But Westminster imposed this system on us.
How many seats would the SNP get in Holyrood if it was an entirely first-past-the-post system?
If an indy list-only party simply corrected the difference, then no one could complain, i.e. voting SNP in the constituency plus voting ISP in the list turns Holyrood into a Westminster FPTP system.
No one could complain about that, could they???
Bungo, Jeremy & Zippy @4:59pm
So you didn’t bother with the article and jumped straight to the comments. Even simply reading the title would have saved you embarrassment.
If you’d been paying attention you would have seen that the gist of the article and a summary of the comments is pointing to a referendum being some ways off. The damage from the pandemic and the coming soon, Brexit train-wreck is going to take a while to repair. If you compare that to what would have happened if we had stayed in the EU then the damage will never be undone. So NS is telling us that there’s no vote on independence for a generation – just like the yoons have been saying all along. And here was me thinking that voting SNP would mean that Scotland would be able to stand on it’s on two feet.
ian says:
‘it’s not easy to force a Holyrood election before it’s due. It requires a clear majority’.
How much of a majority?
————
i seem to remember it was 2/3rds majority, but i am unclear if it would be possible to do this via another mechanism, eg the opossition have 2 weeks to form a new government but if snp/greens wont agree/veto any budget proposal, it is difficult to see how a new election could be avoided
Well you’ll be sad to know I’ve got 6 years left to vote in elections. I couldn’t vote in the referendum and I have not quibble with that. But as a Scottish citizen (for life) you will not shut me up of expressing my opinion vote or no vote.
Bungo, you’re not from the Bungo bar, perchance?
Nicola is not playing a blinder.
She has wasted several mandates and we are now at the mercy of the most useless bunch charlatans to be in control at WM.
Please take of your rose coloured specs and face up to reality.
Capella,no one said campaign during the Covid crisis, do you continually ignore what Breeks has said about a constitutional backstop?
@stuart
So NS is telling us that there’s no vote on independence for a generation
—————
except she didnt, you only imagined this
Johnny @2:06pm
Re: Sarabands response
‘if there ends up being lots of list MSPs from a second pro-indy party, it’s because people voted for them’
Well, that’s actually incorrect of him.
As I pointed out in a previous thread, you may have missed – people wouldn’t be voting for them (list Msp’s) it’s a ‘Closed-List’; you’re voting for a party and the party decides who their allocated list votes go to.
*The method and calculation involved in allocating list votes is d’Hondt, but the actual voting system is AMS (Additional Member System) Our other voting system, for regional elections, is STV (Single Transferable Vote) where we rank candidates in order of preference.
If people really could decide their preference (like STV) then they would probably be able to weed out the arseholes parties impose on them.
As for the AMS in general; it is certainly not cheating – as the halfwits Stu has highlighted believe – The ‘List’ system was put there specifically to make it democratic, in order to balance the FPTP Constituency Vote. There you actually do chose specific candidates, but alone it is as undemocratic as the FPTP we have to use for UK General Elections.
The whole ‘sneaking in by the backdoor’ thing, is less related to being a list Msp (required for more democracy) so much as being snuck in by their party – the electorate probably wouldn’t have chosen them.
That issue could be resolved by moving to an ‘Open-List’ which would make AMS even more democratic – as recommended by the Arbuthnott Commission’s Report 2004-6 (or just using STV across the board for all elections) but that report and its recommendations, was filed under ‘B’ (for bin)
Not picking on you, just pedantically clarifying Saraband’s response.
Colin Alexander says:
17 July, 2020 at 4:11 pm
“…There was never going to be a democratic / parliamentary route to independence anyway…”
Certainly not in the Westminster sense, no. From 19 September, following the indyref loss and the imposition of EVEL, it was patently, blatantly, obvious that another indyref was never going to be possible. We could declare independence or approach the General Assembly of the UN for remittance to the International Court of Justice, via the Treaty. Other than those two ways, there simply is no prospect of holding, let alone winning, a second indyref. I think that must be the new position, even for the List parties. No more fairies at the bottom of the garden, no more lies and obfuscations. Go forward with the certainty that there will never be a second indyref and that a new route must be found. If a new route cannot be found – although I am at a loss as to why not – then it will go to the wire.
Cameron Brodie: it does not stand up in international law. Again, why these nonsensical and blatantly false utterances by the Unionists and even our own are given house room, I do not know.
@Mike Lothian
Maybe it’s because both existing “Pro-Indy” Parties have similar policy positions that many do not agree with for a myriad reasons.
By continuing to vote them both into power for another parliamentary term, voters we would be empowering them to implement policies on us we do not want, along with their questionable commitment to ending the Union.
Enduring policies we do not want by Governments we didn’t elect is the very grievance we have with being stuck in the Union, so far from an ideal tactic for our own
GovernmentAdministration to follow this modus and piss off your own supporters within the electorate.If however there was a commitment by both parties to drop the woowoo and turn the next Holyrood election into a plebiscitary event to end the union then possibly we would not even be discussing this.
They created the void, not us.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-bitter-minds/
The above figures for deaths has bothered me for ages and I cannot get it
It says the figures for NI,0 Wales 1 and Scotland 0 then England 16 then UK 114 – what am I not seeing/understanding.
Help!
SC@5.19pm. I haven’t ever said who people should vote for. So not sure what you’re getting at. I’ve said who I’d vote for and / what I do and don’t support. What’s so wrong with that?
Today’s blog from Jason.
(Will JSM’s prediction in the comments be accurate…)
https://randompublicjournal.com/2020/07/17/gaming-the-system/
SC @5:25pm
You’re correct, I was editorialising the comments here but the clear message is that the economic damage from the pandemic is the first priority. Well even if it disappeared tomorrow that’s going to take a while. The UK economy shrank 20% this year and bounced back only 1% on lockdown being lifted. Clearly the recovery is going to be slow. Now throw in Brexit – that’s going to be a kick in the face while the economy is on the floor – see the link I posted in the previous thread, http://archive.is/WQuiK. It’s not unreasonable to think that it’s at least 5 years before any semblance of recovery is taking hold. Is that a generation? Clearly no but it’s a lot longer than anybody expected.
Stu and Robin McAlpine are right. The latter’s phrase “Charlotte Street Nationalists” is a thing of beauty and neatly encapsulates why independence has hit the buffers.
Like Robin I’m tired with this. Beyond tired in fact.
Back in the 1980’s (yes, I really am that old!) the hamburger chain Wendy’s ran a campaign instrumental in popularising the “Where’s the beef?” catchphrase. I think the only rational response for those of us who share Robin and Stu’s sense of ennui with the Charlotte Street Nationalists version of indy tantric sex is to demand that they show us the beef.
Like Robin, I no longer trust them. Folk like me who actually want independence, not just the promise of independence, are entitled to tell them as Robin so eloquently puts it:
“Don’t tell me that I can trust you. I don’t believe a word of it. Set out your detailed plan now or, to quote that sentiment towards people like me who actually want independence, fuck off.”
Hear, hear!
Ross Greer looking like a gimp .Nice.
I met Bungo. 🙂
….the real one.
schrodingers cat
I replied saying you’re right and that I was editorialising the comments but with the economic down turn and Brexit fixing the economy is going to take years.
However the post got “eaten” I must have typed something I shouldn’t have.
There is always going to be another supposed good reason for parking Independence until later. As the turmoil around us increases the only way to achieve stability is to take our destiny into our own hands.There is only so much mitigation the SG can do as we stare into the Brexit abyss while firefighting a pandemic. A pandemic that will always play second fiddle to the Tories’ tax haven hard Brexit fantasy.
If Nicola Sturgeon truly believes our fate is better in the hands of Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnston for the foreseeable future I want to see her workings on a piece of paper.
@Scozzie
“Well you’ll be sad to know I’ve got 6 years left to vote in elections. I couldn’t vote in the referendum and I have not quibble with that. But as a Scottish citizen (for life) you will not shut me up of expressing my opinion vote or no vote.”
Unfortunately for you, it is not possible to vote in the Scottish Parliament election unless you are resident in Scotland. You won’t have a vote in 2021 for any party.
Stuart MacKay says:
You’re correct, I was editorialising the comments here but the clear message is that the economic damage from the pandemic is the first priority.
—————–
fine, but both you and i know that scotlands economy wont recover, it isnt in westminsters interests for it to recover. indeed, it is in westminsters interests to make sure it doesnt so they can continue to blame the snp.
nicola is right, scotlands economic recovery is no1 priority however, the only way that can happen is with independence.
maybe this is what she meant?
It is clear -from the start- that Sturgeon used covid as an excuse to park Independence.
Alex Salmond also said that the 2014 referendum was a “once in a generation/lifetime” opportunity. Everyone roundly condemned the unionists for casting a figure of speech as if it was a literal commitment.
But Nicola Sturgeon also said it, so apparently we are to take it as a literal commitment. Is there a double standard operating here?
Anyone remember the discussion of what constitutes a “generation” in politics? It’s 7 years in the Good Friday Agreement. Why, that would take us up to 2021.
I can see both sides of this argument and Paul Kavanagh of WGD provide a compelling argument against this.
However, time and time again, we have sent strong messages to Westminster with a majority one party, including 56 MP’s in 2015 and it didn’t make a blind bit of difference. Besides, I do think that Westminster is more apt to listen and compromise if the SNP, a known and moderate quantity to them, is challenged by a more radical indy supporting party.
It is a risky strategy but after next year, the Scottish parliament and it’s ability to govern is at the mercy of Westminster who won’t be held back by EU rules. How long could the Scottish Parliament have legitimacy to hold any right to self-determination after that?
For those that haven’t read McAlpine’s sobering article, here it is
“I HAVE a difficult history with unity. As a political strategist, I have no difficulty in seeing its benefits; as a human being who hopes for a better future I have encountered calls for unity only as reasons why I must drop my principles and bow to someone more powerful.
So here we are again: two votes SNP. We may have treated your votes as nothing more than a useful commodity in the past but it will be different this time. Honest, really, truly.
And yet the leadership of the SNP isn’t even trying to maintain a pretence that there is any hope of progress if you give them two votes. They’re actually telling everyone a referendum is not going to happen and then turning to the movement and delivering a stage wink.
This has summarised my last five years. I have made a career out of reading the detail and nuance of politics so I was well aware that the SNP leadership was openly briefing anyone who would listen that they were not going to pursue independence (look over shoulder, wink).
Weirdly, much of the defence of this from within the independence movement is that that they have to say this stuff for electoral reasons while secretly and assiduously following a brilliant plan.
‘Trust them, they’re lying’ is an odd defence, especially given the volume of evidence about who was being lied to. It was the wink that was a lie, not the promise of inaction. Inaction is the only thing this government has delivered.
So to be here again is starting to break my spirit. Please, join me in reading the detail. A few weeks ago, one “Sturgeon ally” was briefing unionist media that people who thought there could be a referendum in the next five years could “fuck off” (their words).
Earlier this week, when Ian Blackford was telling us to give the SNP all our votes, he was asked whether he thought they could deliver a referendum in 2022 and he refused even to countenance the possibility. “One step at a time,” he says – i.e. ‘give us your votes and wait and see what you get’.
Of course, you could just listen to the only person with any say in this matter. On Sunday Nicola Sturgeon went on national television and said that there would be no talk of independence until after both Covid and the resulting economic crisis were over. It wasn’t a slip – she said it twice.
This stands in sharp contrast with her stated goal in last year’s General Election campaign of pursuing a referendum – albeit by setting a condition (a Section 30 order or nothing) she knew could not be met.
And yet still she seems to fear you missed her telling you all of this, so she said it again as plainly as it is possible to say it. You. Are. Not. Getting. A. Referendum. In. The. Next. Five. Years. Is that clear enough?
For three years, the first minister hid behind her self image (don’t talk about independence, just trust me). For the next three years, she hid behind Brexit (don’t talk about independence, Brexit first). For the next five, it appears she plans to hide behind Covid (don’t talk about independence at all).
For me, what is equally beyond dispute is that this is a right-of-centre administration and has been for a while now. All Sturgeon’s trusted advisors are clearly on the right of the political spectrum. George Kerevan’s recent wonderful analysis in Conter of the rightwards drift of the party lacked only the dozens upon dozens of examples of right-wing policy and public-charity-for-corporation that have resulted.
And if anyone tries to tell me the SNP is progressive, they better be ready with some examples – and if those include Universal Basic Income, a ‘Green Deal’, a National Energy Company, universal childcare, ‘affordable housing’, closing the education attainment gap, a Poverty Tsar, land reform, open government, local democracy, Council Tax reform or a ‘revolution in care’, you’ll need to find some more.
Every single one of these (and many more) gained the Scottish Government headlines which might have given the impression it is progressive. Not a single one of the above happened; all were either fake or failed. It has been nothing more than ‘left-washing’ of the most cynical sort.
And if you tell me that what is different this time is you, that you as a party loyalist are going to make sure this happens, please spare me. Democracy in the SNP has been reduced to levels which would make Vladimir Putin blush; there is no serious mechanism for the party membership to set policy before the manifesto is written. What does your leadership have to do to convince you that they don’t place any value whatsoever on what you think?
Things change and change radically. If you really believe that the SNP is going to be in the same polling position by election time you probably need a reality check. Politics doesn’t work like that and a full year of ‘Covid, Covid, look at me, not my record’ isn’t likely to play out. There are those that would like you to believe the Salmond affair is over. It is no such thing.
People will forget the Sturgeon screen-time during Covid and start to look at the record. Most alarmingly, the Scottish Government has a terrible domestic record and no serious plan for the economic crisis ahead.
If things don’t change, be clear where we’re going. Sturgeon with an overall majority will absolutely, certainly not deliver a referendum in the next five years; nor will she deliver a Green New Deal or a new social or economic settlement in Scotland. You can shout all you want – once they have their majority you can “fuck off” (again, their words, not mine).
There is nothing you can do about it. The first minister is in complete control of government and not a single SNP MSP will ever, ever rebel. Her husband is in complete control of the party machine and the party conference has been replaced with a toothless ‘listening exercise’. You can talk big about how you won’t accept inaction, but it’s just talk. You can’t do a thing.
I have never been convinced by second vote strategies, but with the self-imposed irrelevance of the Scottish Greens these days I am starting to hope that there are at least options, but we shall have to wait and see.
Beyond that, I don’t have any answers left. I have tried to work with others to build a cross-party, non-party movement, but SNP HQ did everything it possibly could to crush it. Common Weal tried really hard to resolve the intellectual gap in the case for independence, but were completely ignored in favour of the never-credible liability that is the Growth Commission.
And I’ve explained all the options I know of for achieving independence, but so long as things stay as they are these options are little more than a historical curiosity-in-waiting. Fundamentally, Nicola Sturgeon’s people – Andrew Wilson, Angus Robertson, Alyn Smith, the SPADs – show no sign of believing independence is possible in the next five years. They really, really think you’re all silly children who need saved from yourselves. Poor things, imagining independence is possible…
The Sturgeon team would prefer you to believe that it is a function of her personality that is making independence viable (in the long term) through the SNP. She wants you to forget the SNP won in 2007 and got a majority in 2011. They want you to believe that the 2015 election landslide was because of the ‘amazing’ few weeks she was leader (and not because of the experience of the referendum or Labour’s collapse).
They’d like you to forget that of the four elections she has fought since, three saw reversals or substantial underperformance, and the only one that bucked the trend was when Labour melted down and the Tories became English nationalists.
Voting SNP (now, sadly) isn’t really a vote for a party but for a president. It is a president who does not appear to have ‘we’ or ‘us’ in her vocabulary.
Frankly, I’m about done with the pretence. Another five years of the Charlotte Street Nationalists is just another giant lurch towards a Charlotte Street Scotland. I give the prospects of independence in that time as being as close as damnit to zero.
I’m tired with this, and much as I love the independence movement, more far-fetched schemes hatched on social media but with no chance of implementation may make you feel better, but will be as pointless over the five years to come as they were in the five that we just lived through.
So as far as I’m concerned, it’s over to the loyalists now. Spare me all your sycophantic newspaper columns, Tweets, Facebook posts and on-the-record quotes.
Don’t tell me it’ll be different this time, that there is a secret plan, that the rise in the polls is all a result of genius, that supposed competence wins referendums, that you really, really promise to hold them to account this time, that there will be a manifesto commitment. Don’t tell me that I can trust you.
I don’t believe a word of it. Set out your detailed plan now or, to quote that sentiment towards people like me who actually want independence, fuck off.”
As I’ve said on Scot Goes Pop:
-:- if the views are that a list-only party will either fail miserably or succeed brilliantly then lets do it because either it has no effect or wins big – so what’s to lose?
@winifred mccartney
The 17 deaths today in the table are 1 Wales + 16 England 0 Scotland and 0 NI are official deaths occurring in a hospital setting.
The 114 are the Total deaths inside and outwith hospital
114 – 17 = 97 people died in (care homes or at home etc)
That I think is the basic picture. 🙁
@Andy Ellis
“Back in the 1980’s (yes, I really am that old!) the hamburger chain Wendy’s ran a campaign instrumental in popularising the “Where’s the beef?” catchphrase.”
FFS “hamburger chain Wendy’s” was it a successful campaign? I doubt they sold many burgers in Scotland, there are no Wendy’s in the UK.
Are there many Scottish residents left posting on Wings?
PacMan says:
after next year, the Scottish parliament and it’s ability to govern is at the mercy of Westminster who won’t be held back by EU rules. How long could the Scottish Parliament have legitimacy to hold any right to self-determination after that?
———————-
fair point, but westminster could park tanks on the lawn tomorrow, the eu wouldnt saw boo. we are always at the mercy of westminster, jan 1st wont change that
@Ayeright
Sheesh…everyone’s a critic. 🙁
The point of the reference was that it’s become a meme where a “new entrant” challenges the establishment. Can’t think why it sprang to mind…..
Perhaps I’m just not one of those Scots with a chip on my shoulder spouting blood and soil shite about Wings being a local site for local people?
Yes, that must be it.
@Andy Ellis
Forget the blood and soil, I just think you’re full of shite.
SNUP, Scottish National Unionist Party? Can we not organise ourselves as a people in the way that we did to secure our parliament again?
The hate speech Bill is a profound threat to freedom of speech and political discourse. It also seeks to police our bookshelves. Really SNP policies are coming from hell with no quid pro quo.
schrodingers cat @5:52pm
I would love that to be the case but with all the cryptic and opaque references it’s hard to know what game is being played or even if there is a game in progress.
If this somehow becoming a test of faith then at least for me it’s starting to wear a bit thin.
@stuart
i can see yer post just fine ?
@Ayeright
Truly the Rab C Nesbitt of the Wings comments section.
Republic of Scotland @ 5.56pm
Thanks for posting the McAlpine article. Difficult to argue with him – we are being taken for mugs by the careerists who have infiltrated the upper ranks of the SNP.
Time for a cull and an end to their nice tax-payer funded existence.
FFS, don’t mention any ‘new road’ to him Andy, it’ll only end in someone getting burned.
😉
@Andy Ellis
And you can be my Mary doll 🙂
@Andy Ellis
Nah, now you’re my Wendy doll 🙂
Rev Stu says in his article:
—–
in terms of fighting COVID-19 (which is now all but eradicated in Scotland anyway).
—–
Sorry but I disagree with that assessment. Community transmission is estimated from the survey data to be 4.3% – and that’s with everything thrown at it!
And that’s probably an underestimate too (given it’s based on people who presented to a GP and needed a blood sample taken for something other than COVID-19).
Now we’re re-opening pubs, we’re going to see a resurgence in cases because it’s happened everywhere else that reopened pubs and because the virus is transmitted by the people who go out and about.
I’ve complained before that our lockdown is a half-arsed lockdown – if the gov really wants to get rid of this virus, it’s going to have to be far more draconian. Closing supermarkets and having food deliveries only would be one step, stopping all flights another, and so on.
It’s people going into shared spaces that spreads the virus and not enough is being done to limit that.
I see folk defending the SNP by saying they are high in the polls, and indy is at a high of 54%. That’s great, but neither of those things will make us independent, and THAT is actually the point.
The SNP could win every single seat at Westminster and an overall majority at the next Scottish election, but it will still not achieve independence.
In my lifetime, it was actually very easy, and accepted by unionists and Tories alike, that a majority of pro indy MP’s returned from Scotland, would mean independence. It was the SNP, under it current leader, who said that no longer applied. The Tories didn’t, the Libdems didn’t, no, the people who said that no longer applied were the SNP.
All the SNP have done is create hurdles where previously they simply did not exist.
So, the question then remains, how do we get independence, given the Tories are not going to agree to a referendum? That is what this is about. That is what is making folk rightly angry at the SNP leadership.
Socrates MacSporran says:
Time for a cull and an end to their nice tax-payer funded existence.
——————–
i think the idea of the new indy list party is to cull the unionist list msps. jus’ sayin’
Robert Louis says:
I see folk defending the SNP by saying they are high in the polls, and indy is at a high of 54%. That’s great, but neither of those things will make us independent, and THAT is actually the point.
—————–
actually that is the point, we need 50%+ to win independence
45% gives us a mandate to hold indyref2, with or without a s30 but it wont win us indy
I’m not voting for SNP Turncoats.
I’m 74…. I can’t take another ten years of this…… we need to go before Brexit destroys us. How can our government not see this?
Ayeright
You are not helping Scotland by supporting a political approach that considers Scotland is still legally beholden to the legal convention of Parliamentary sovereignty, which is alien culture to Scotland. Treaty law stands above national law, though national law is now being used to bar Scots from accessing legal rights and due process of law. Do you want to protect Scotland’s civic society from harm?
I want to gain access to human rights, which are INDIVISIBLE. Being forced out of the EU’s legal jurisdiction because our leaders appear to lack legal and political acumen, will almost certainly mean I will be devoid of human rights protection at the end of my life. Just when I will be needing some security from uncertain precariousness.
oeconomia, 9-1 | 2019
Equality, Recognition and Social Justice: A Hegelian Perspective Announcing Amartya Sen
https://journals.openedition.org/oeconomia/5178
Gregory Beekman just in time with some late covid news a wee reminder to us all to be very afraid .Give us a break from this media propaganda.
Fine post, Rev.
@aulbea1, 1.21
We are dealing with unimaginable & prolonged treachery. I agree that it is prolonged treachery. Unfortunately, it is not unimaginable. Look at the history of Scotland.
@Muscleguy, 2.27
It seems to me that Nicola is trying to tell us she is not up to running an independent nation. Yes, it looks like that to me too.
@liz, 3.32
Thanks for that link – a real catch.
I listened to Nicola again and it is clear she is saying no Indyref2. Quite clear
Having said that it is never wise to let your enemy know what you plan so what a politician says is usually to opposite of what they mean.
We see already with Stu publishing his thoughts in a list party the number appearing – opportunists?
A list party will work but only if there is one Indy list party per region.
A unionist list party might be interesting as it will reduce the Labour and conservative seats I think. Perhaps there is a place for Mr Galloway.
If there is no Ref by the end of the year I think it will not happen in my life time.
Robert Louis says:
So, the question then remains, how do we get independence, given the Tories are not going to agree to a referendum? That is what this is about. That is what is making folk rightly angry at the SNP leadership.
——————-
by doing exactly what nicola has been doing, her competent handling of the corona virus has pushed support for the snp above 50% for the 1st time . hint, 50%+ is a prerequisite.
we stand in the next holyrood election on a manifesto of just independence. we get more than 50% of the vote. we win
simples
unless you have better idea?
Dogwhistle hints that he oted SNP. Sheeesh
shug says:
17 July, 2020 at 6:29 pm
I listened to Nicola again and it is clear she is saying no Indyref2. Quite clear
—————-
when? where? did she say no more holyrood elections as well?
It’s well known that the Irish Parliamentary Party was infiltrated by the British state, as was Sinn Fein and even the higher echelons of the IRA and PIRA. Anyone who still doubts that the SNP are similarly compromised is foolish and naïve in the extreme. The current leadership have been kicking independence into the long grass for years now and clearly have no intention of delivering. It’s really just a guessing game of who the double agents are, at this stage.
The Governments over exaggerated response to virus is a disaster. The economic’ reset’ ’ already mentioned here will prove to be catastrophic as millions lose their jobs. The economy was in trouble when covid was used as a convenient way to get a political advantage over the public.
There are still some who refuse to see the politics behind crazy Sturgeons covid fascism.
schrodingers cat says: 17 July, 2020 at 6:03 pm
Of course they could but that isn’t the British way. What will happen is a slow death by a thousand cuts.
cirsium says:
Fine post, Rev.
@aulbea1, 1.21
We are dealing with unimaginable & prolonged treachery. I agree that it is prolonged treachery. Unfortunately, it is not unimaginable. Look at the history of Scotland.
————–
i have, generally its a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
2 weeks after we have polling confirmation that support is now at 54% and wos is awash with “nicola ate my hamster brigade”
jeezo
fa’s like us?
everybody.. swine!
PacMan says:
Of course they could but that isn’t the British way. What will happen is a slow death by a thousand cuts.
—-
with the snp on 55% and indy at 54%, perhaps they should hurry up, we’ve never had it so good 🙂
schrodingers cat
You might think your judgement is sound, but I have my doubts. 😉
https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/index.php/fass/article/download/18356/11750
Don’t understand how anyone can see it as ‘gaming’ the system or as ‘a democratic outrage’ or ‘depriving unionists of representation’….I especially don’t get how this mince can come from our side!
Every person chooses how to deploy their 2 votes. Every pro/anti Indy voter, undecided & pro/anti unionist. All you are doing is making BOTH votes count.
Were the folk above calling SNP voters getting 4 seats for nearly a million votes when Labour got 21 for far, far less, or Tories etc..nope! That’s how the system works.
Use your vote in whatever way gets the outcome YOU want. If others don’t like it….tough.
X_Sticks says:
17 July, 2020 at 2:49 pm
Having read Robin’s piece this morning and then this from Stuart I think I may as well vote tory 1/2 at the Holyrood 2021 election. There seems to be more chance of achieving independence for #Scotland by doing so. I fucking despair.
This thought has crossed my mind also but I’m not sure I could get my hand to make that x, I will however abstain on my first vote and give ISP my list vote, just wish I could give them both, unless something major happens this year then the dream will have indeed died.
heartbroken doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.
Don’t understand how anyone can see it as ‘gaming’ the system or as ‘a democratic outrage’ or ‘depriving unionists of representation’….I especially don’t get how this mince can come from our side!
Every person chooses how to deploy their 2 votes. Every pro/anti Indy voter, undecided & pro/anti unionist. All you are doing is making BOTH votes count.
Were the folk above calling SNP voters getting 4 seats for nearly a million votes when Labour got 21 for far, far less, or Tories etc. Democratic outrage?..nope! That’s how the system works.
Use your vote in whatever way gets the outcome YOU want. If others don’t like it….tough.
I really am coming to believe that a lot of the hatred of the idea of a new list indy party is because of who would be running it, pure personality politics pish, rather than the actual unionist-unseating idea of the thing itself. Desperate I’ll-scratch-yer-eyes-out-dearie, handbag-fighting stuff from the ostensible ‘other’ side.
MadCatWumman says:
I especially don’t get how this mince can come from our side!
————–
because if the snp officially support a new indy list party, the electoral commission would ban the isp from standing
simples
Famous 15 what is Nicola Sturgeons plan for Independence? Any ideas ?
WhoRattledYourCage says:
I really am coming to believe that a lot of the hatred of the idea of a new list indy party is because of who would be running it,
—————–
except we dont know who’s gonna be running it, do you?
Schrödinger’s cat 50% is not a requirement for a referendum.
All brilliant comments and thanks Rev Stu for the article.
I keep hoping there is a double bluff going on but resign myself to the possibility that ‘events dear boy‘ is our current hope.
As a septuagenarian, I seriously need to be involved in some action, despite being a pacifist until now.
Schrodinger. Sturgeon stole our freedom .Jam any hamster you like up your arse as many as you fucking like.
Nothing to disagree with in the Article or Robin’s one. Alas
hence, after 32 years in the SNP (including being Santy Claus at Shetland SNP Christmas Party – a tough gig that one “YUN’s no a REAL Santy. Yun’s a man wi a false beard. Peerie shites) I have terminated my membership and joined ISP
SNP1 / ISP2
Famous 15 Independence? Sturgeons plans? Any the wiser?
I see Murdo has just announced on his twitter feed that Prof. Tomkins is stepping down from Holyrood next year.
Some good news to start the weekend!
Hey Famous 15 get your hand off it and pay attention.So far Nicola Sturgeon appears to have binned Independence. Any thoughts?
schrodingers cat says:
17 July, 2020 at 6:38 pm
There was a quote in the 80’s TV comedy He-de-hi where a poor couple had every misfortune happen to them say ‘Harold McMillan said we’ve never had it so good, We’ve never had it’. That applies to us Scots, we currently have the most sustained popular support for the SNP and indy and we as a nation are still dithering. I mean we are navel gazing about closing the border with England despite Westminsters almost Laissez-faire approach to the virus compared to our immense sacrifice that all of us Scots individually had to and continue to make beggars belief. I guess some Scots are happy with having a second lock down and being continued to be ruled by the Westminster elite who have time and time again proved themselves to be incompetent and untrustworthy?
schrodingers
By next year Westminster will have a chokehold on Holyrood.
They may shut it they will certainly take away the power
I had already given up on the Greens ages ago.
I was suspicious of them for a while, and their recent votes in Edinburgh has confirmed my suspicions of them.
As for Greer, as noted, he is only in Parliament because of the List system, and the Greens only got a lot of those votes thru pro Independence supporters.
The Greens will not be getting those pro Independence votes again.
@ Andy Ellis The latter’s phrase “Charlotte Street Nationalists” is a thing of beauty and neatly encapsulates why independence has hit the buffers.
I see this bandied around a lot these days. Alex Salmond was the Oil Economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland, headquarters, Charlotte Street. Does that make him another Charlotte Street nationalist?
@Capella
Well, no. Andrew Wilson is no Alex Salmond, as I’m sure even he would admit.
The stodgy, grey-suited managerialism of Charlotte Street Partners and the ill-famed Growth Commission is the “I Can’t Believe It Isn’t Devolution” of British politics.
You don’t need MI5 involvement or other British nationalist infiltration when the Yes movement is shot through with devolusionists on the make.
Maskery wokery, jiggery pockery.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/14/muzzling-the-public/
If these things are so vital to national health why are they £35 a box and not free? Made in China, naturally. Do the Brits make anything?
Not voluntary, but at your expense regardless of income.
Notice the virtue signaling, ritually pure Green and very carroty Ross Greer wears one.
Government issue?
I had already given up on the Greens ages ago.
I was suspicious of them for a while, and their recent votes in Edinburgh has confirmed my suspicions of them.
As for Greer, as noted, he is only in Parliament because of the List system, and the Greens only got a lot of those votes thru pro Independence supporters.
The Greens will not be getting those pro Independence votes again.
As for SNP, while we get the fact, and it is fact, they are considered the main Party for Independence, they cannot get away with stalling, any longer.
There comes a time when we have to say, “Enough!” They got those votes in good faith, but they are wasting everyone’s time, and have been for a good few years now.
We need a need pro Independence group, as it is clear, SNP is not interested in going for Independence any time soon.
We would like to think they will make a push due to present circumstances (Brxit, Covid, etc,) but the leadership has made it clear, they won’t be.
They can’t complain then, when those of us who see the absolute necessity for Independence here and now, demand action or we go to another political group.
For that is what SNP is forcing us to do.
If they keep going as they are, SNP could well end up where Labour is today, having been replaced by others, who are determined to get us our Independence.
Shug says: 17 July, 2020 at 7:00 pm
It follows that Westminster would allow Holyrood to keep enough powers so that a unionist vote could be sustained using the ‘no referendum’ mantra but not enough so that Holyrood could influence the Scottish public that extra powers/independence is needed. In short, it will be neutered.
@Mike Lothian 4:58pm
“…why not put your full weight behind the greens?”
Just two days ago, the post “The Bitter Minds” covered all that and more.
Although, ‘who to vote for and why/why not’, is pretty much the Ladybird book of politics. As such it’s discussed here daily. Surprised you missed them ?
tl;dr
No reason not to, unless you have a reason not to.
You are saying it,any activists like myself are saying it, Robin M Alpine is saying it.
The cause for Independence has been side steeped by SNP.
Why is still to unfold.
Like you I am not giving up on it
The facts of the right to secession are there, law is on our side.
We just need the leadership, and if it takes a new party for Independence to shame SNP back to core cause so be it.
SNP 1st vote new Indy party 2nd vote
I will be pushing YES2 movement to back this.
Is there anyone more grey suited and managerial than an oil economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland?
Alex Salmond also said he wanted Devo Max on the Indyref ballot. He said he wanted “all or something”. That makes him a devplutionist too, doesn’t it? Yet a lot of people here would compare Nicola Sturgeon unfavourably with Alex Salmond for taking advice from the very same type of person that Alex Salmond was.
I’m not criticising Alex Salmond. I just object to double standards being applied. But perhaps you too would reject the advice of Alex Salmond given his background and expertise.
Should we take the SNP to court for not defending our sovereignty?
schrodingers cat said: “since the snp won only one list msp seat, maree tod, in 2016”
The SNP have 4 List MSPs.
Col says: 17 July, 2020 at 7:20 pm
Given the power of Westminster and their ability to change the rules then every action needs to be considered however unconventional or unpredictable it is. The other thing is the amount of publicity it would generate as it could well get round the normal filters of UK media where Scottish matters is of little concern unless it fits in with that of the British state.
While very risky of being counter-productive, at the very least, it shouldn’t be discounted and at least be used a sort of sword of Damocles over the SNP?
Dogbiscuit at 6:29
That’s anti-science nonsense you’ve just spouted.
Viruses are real – first discovered in 1892 but not seen until 1938, after the invention of the electron microscope; coronaviruses weren’t identified until the 1960s, with the term ‘coronavirus’ not being introduced until 1968.
Sadly, it is anything but ‘media propaganda’.
Constitutional law and order is vital to enabling a just society. So I don’t care what flavour of politics dominates the SNP, so long as the approach adopted towards Scotland’s political emancipation is coherent and compatible with international law and order.
The British constitution was not intended to support Scotland’s legal and cultural subjugation by right-wing, (white), populist, English nationalism.
Democracy and constitutional reform: Deliberative versus populist constitutionalism
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0191453719872294
Callmedave – thanks for that, just one more question – are these all Covid deaths even though at home or in care homes.
I see now England has said Scotland and NI and Wales are counting differently with someone dying some time after being diagnosed with Covid being counted only in England and not anywhere else. Are they about to doctor the figures?
Did you ever hear such fucking shite as Cllr Mhairi Hunter SNP arguing that it would be unfair to Unionist if independence candidates maxed the votes to take seats.
Quite frankly what planet is this creature on. The poor half wit thinks the unionists are bad done by. Tells you all about what the SNP has become. Total shit.
@pacman
we currently have the most sustained popular support for the SNP and indy and we as a nation are still dithering
————-
in dec we were polling 42% we won 45% at the ge.
it is precisely 2 weeks since we have had confirmation of the 54% support for indy.
are you asking why have we been dithering for the last 2 weeks?
um..
@winifred mccartney
The Scots and N. Irish count anyone who has corona virus on the death certificate even though the may have died from other symptoms but it has to have been within a month of the corona virus being suspected. 28 days or a calendar month ?
This is an accepted method in many countries.
The ONS in England apparently count it as a corona virus death if suspected for an infinite period even though they have died from another condition.
So the WM Gov may have a point.
But the difference in the figures according to big Auntie’s expert this afternoon says it will make very little difference to the overall figures.
Colin Alexander says:
17 July, 2020 at 7:23 pm
schrodingers cat said: “since the snp won only one list msp seat, maree tod, in 2016”
The SNP have 4 List MSPs.
———
soz should have said in 7/8 regions the snp won only one msp
i was re iterating the point that all the new indy list parties have declared they wont stand in the south region
so the risk would be to only one snp list msp
SC,
By that logic we shouldn’t have had an independence referendum in 2014.
I understand that some people believe we shouldn’t have, are you one of them?
@breastplate
i dont know what you are referring to
I’m referring to this.
schrodingers cat says:
17 July, 2020 at 7:38 pm
@pacman
we currently have the most sustained popular support for the SNP and indy and we as a nation are still dithering
————-
in dec we were polling 42% we won 45% at the ge.
it is precisely 2 weeks since we have had confirmation of the 54% support for indy.
are you asking why have we been dithering for the last 2 weeks?
um..
schrodingers cat @ 7.43pm
Thank you for the clarification. Very informative.
I think the erse just fell oot the SNP interlopers with all this deflection.They’re toast the lot of them and as for the green tories FFS words fail me.
Roll on the end of the “Covid Crises”
Col says:
17 July, 2020 at 7:20 pm
Should we take the SNP to court for not defending our sovereignty?
Yes, I think we should, and we should also impeach Holyrood for unconstitutional misconduct in abandoning the principle of Scottish Sovereignty.
But that’s secondary to disputing UK parliamentary sovereignty, and persuading the UN to respect and hopefully recognise, Scotland’s popular sovereignty and National Constitution.
If Holyrood wants to conduct it’s business as a lesser devolved assembly beneath Westminster, then Scottish citizens should treat it the same way, and look elsewhere for Scotland’s Legal and Constitutional representation than a glorified Westminster sub-committee.
.
Thank you Stuart for one of your best articles yet.
The logic follows that Scotland has ONE choice:-
A). Persuade/hope/pray Alex Salmond comes out of retirement to lead the new Guaranteed IndyRef2 Party. GIPPER for short.
Or…
B). Follow the USA playbook. The voters in America were that DISGUSTED with all of their politicians they voted for the GIRFUY party. Head honcho, Donald Wrecking Ball Miley Cyrus Trump.
Donald’s vanity, his orange sun tan on leathery 72 year old skin and his effort to get re-elected has so far led him t sacrifice 138,000 dead Americans at the Altar of Trump’s ego.
Without doubt, Trump has been one giant fluck you to the political establishment. The US voters got that right. They wanted to send Washington a message and Trump delivered. Political Armageddon.
Either way, here in Scotland, we get to ditch the over-promoted Unionist shill Nicola Sturgeon. Sadly, Stuart Campbell was right and ahead of his time calling the duplicitous Dreghorn Dyke out for exactly what she is…
https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-betrayer/
You might ask: but how do we ditch IndyRef denying deadbeat fae Dreghorn?
At this exact moment in a smartly decorated study in an old mill house in Strichen, a truly heroic, brave man is still willing to risk all he has on our dream of Independence for Scotland.
Mr Salmond is written up a storm that will change Scotland forever and for the better.
Unlike Sturgeon, Alex Salmond has a habit of delivering on his promises.
If ever someone was capable of writing the book, the contents of which WILL will sink that sickening Sturgeon, it is the person she betrayed:- Bonnie Dundee. He who promised that we had not seen the last of him or his bunnets.
Tick Tock Sturgeon and your toxic McWoke nest of vipers.
@breastplate
45% wins us the mandate for indyref2, 50%+ wins us indy. we have only had confirmed consistent 50%+ support for indy for 2 weeks now
willie@7.31
Have you got a link for Mhairi Hunters comment?
The D’Hondt system isn’t really all that complicated but it’s complicated enough to turn people off from making any attempt to understand it because on the surface it seems to make no sense, they’d need to dig a little to understand it and sadly for most people that’s just too much effort
Maybe a Wee Blue Book or some kind of Idiots guide explaining the D’Hondt system to voters prior to the next Holyrood election would help if we could get folk to read it.
Here is yet another woolly statement from the FM today:” Scotland will become independent sooner rather than later”.
What the feck does that even mean. We first have to define what later is, and then work back from there. We know that later for her means after the economic meltdown of Covid is over. So let’s say 7 years being optimistic. Sooner is therefore 6 years and 11 months.
It’s yet more hot air and empty catchphrases.
Isn’t it ironic that indy support is polling at 54%, and Sturgeons popularity ratings are through the roof, yet in reality we’ve never been further away from independence.
We’ve been betrayed big time as the Rev pointed out in an article a wee while back.
@CamB (5.48) –
‘I met Bungo…the real one.’
Lucky auld Bungo.
Got a link to prove it?
😉
callmedave says:
17 July, 2020 at 7:41 pm
@winifred mccartney
The Scots and N. Irish count anyone who has corona virus on the death certificate even though the may have died from other symptoms but it has to have been within a month of the corona virus being suspected. 28 days or a calendar month ?
This is an accepted method in many countries.
The ONS in England apparently count it as a corona virus death if suspected for an infinite period even though they have died from another condition.
So the WM Gov may have a point.
But the difference in the figures according to big Auntie’s expert this afternoon says it will make very little difference to the overall figures.
————————-
Oh I don’t know about that dave. You wait in a few weeks,just like the US(as now figures there go straight to WH). IN UK all those deaths will appear as MVA’s even though been hardly any traffic on road,rest will VD’s because we were locked up and having too much nookie.
schrodingers cat says:
Sighing. Your trolling condescension and defending the indefensible are really quite tiresome, but fire on. I never take anybody who uses the Theresa May-inflected word ‘simples’ seriously. The crap-linguistics gag reflex its smarmy, I-know-best use induces in me is not something I can control.
I can only hope the malcontents on this thread constitute a very small minority of those who support Scottish independence. If they constitute a substantial proportion, then independence is doomed.
Anyone who thinks independence can be achieved without a strong SNP in government and wants to give them an electoral kicking is DUMB AS F**K! Anyone who thinks the FM should go into full campaign mode on indy during the covid pandemic, undoing months of good work that has seen support for independence rise to historic levels, is DUMB AS F**K. Pure and simple.
As for Robin McAlpine; I’ve had a lot of respect for what he has done with Common Weal. But what he wrote as quoted above was nothing but a petulant, self indulgent tantrum.
There! Glad I got that out my system.
Me Bungo Pony says:
Curious to know what you think aboot what the ‘strong SNP’ did to Alex Salmond.
WhoRattledYourCage
Who Rattled Your Cage?
It was sh*t. Doesn’t change anything vis a vis the SNP being Scotland’s best chance of gaining independence.
WhoRattledYourCage says:
Curious to know what you think aboot what the ‘strong SNP’ did to Alex Salmond.
—————-
what did nicola do to salmond? is the public enquiry over yet?
As SC indicates, the enquiry hasn’t happened yet. So I should qualify my former statement by saying “if anything untoward is proved to have happened” it was sh*t. Still doesn’t change anything vis a vis the SNP and independence.
Me Bungo Pony says:
17 July, 2020 at 8:45 pm
It was sh*t. Doesn’t change anything vis a vis the SNP being Scotland’s best chance of gaining independence.
—————————————————————
Can you point to any poster whose said differently ?
Me Bungo Pony
nicola posted a photo of her getting her hair cut yesterday
75k likes 🙂
schrodingers cat says:
Who Rattled Your Cage?
Laughing here. First time I’ve ever heard that one online (in ten minutes)! I now know what it must be like for a celeb who has somebody come up to them and say their entertainment catchphrase (“I don’t believe it!”), chortling as if they’re the first person ever to do so. Waspish Wildean wit!
I said ‘what the strong SNP did to Alex Salmond.’ Your conflation of Ms. Sturgeon with the party, as if she is the sole person in it, or even involved in the case against Salmond, is interesting. You inadvertently seem to be admitting that she was deeply involved in something she has said she wasn’t involved in. It comes down to a lot, lot more than ‘what Nicola did to Alex’ Machiavellian dross. However, your view seems to tally pretty much with her own megalomaniacal views of herself and the party (i.e. they are one and the same, Nicola Uber Alles), really.
A few days ago, she said of the concerned protesters at the border, “They don’t speak for me.” The revealing solipsism and narcissism implicit in that statement, and her lack of examination of the facts of the story before condemning concerned Scottish citizens…are very, very revealing – and disturbing – indeed.
Graeme says;
“Can you point to any poster whose said differently ?”
You’re having a laugh aren’t you?
@Me Bungo Pony
We “malcontents” as you term us may indeed be a minority, perhaps even a small minority …but how big a % of the Yes movement do we have to represent? The thing is, we’re the ones who are right.
Awkward for you, I know…but there it is. The (well, more exactly THIS) SNP government isn’t going to lead us to independence any time soon. I don’t want to give them a kicking, I want them to do their fucking job.
The results so far, as Robin McAlpine was right to point out, are neither impressive nor progressive. Some of the analysis of this is dumb as….but it isn’t Robin’s, or Stu’s or mine: it’s yours and that of all the tholed wheesht for indy types. You’ll still be spouting you gradualist pish in 2029 and assuring us just one more mandate will do it.
Gie it a rest and show us the beef.
i have no knowledge of nicola, the snp or salmond,
thats why i avoid making unfounded statements about ongoing investigations
Me Bungo Pony says:
17 July, 2020 at 9:00 pm
Graeme says;
“Can you point to any poster whose said differently ?”
You’re having a laugh aren’t you?
————————————————————
No
@schrodingers cat
Careful now. She’ll be getting accused of putting her hair before independence. No doubt the particularcut will indicate whether she’s a secret unionist or not. There is no conspiracy too zoomy for some people.
The results so far…are neither impressive nor progressive.
i dunno, in the last 2 weeks we now have consistent polls with indy at 54%
impressive in that winning indy whether via an election or indyref2 requires 50%+. we now at least have polls showing that we have the support.
this is why bojo is loathed to even allow us to vote
@Graeme
They’re all over the thread mate. Do your own research.
Ian Brotherhood
You appear to be hostile to practical assistance, and think you’re some sort of smart-arse. That’s not a particularly good look Ian.
https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/119/280
schrodingers cat says:
‘i have no knowledge of nicola, the snp or salmond,
thats why i avoid making unfounded statements about ongoing investigations’
Yer sitting here making statement eftir statement eftir statement aboot the SNP’s (tae yer mind, excellent) efficacy, how we should no be snatching defeat fae the jaws af victory, how people whae want an indy list party are stupid, ‘simples,’ but ye ‘have no knowledge of nicola, the snp, or salmond’? Eh? Whit? Why the hell ur ye even commenting here, then, if ye dinnae ken whit yer talking aboot? Ur ye jist a paid SNP troll, or Ross Greer pouting n praying tae Jesus fae ahint his keyboard? BIZARRE.
My God that`s some nuclear powered gaslighting from that condescending Mhairi Hunter,
Independence politician says `don`t vote for a pro independence party because it might hurt the Unionists`
that is some twisted twilight zone madness on stilts.
As for the Ross Greer chap ,i think his heart is in the right place,
its just that his head is up his ar@e, needs that mask raised 3 inches.
i know you me bungo pony
i recognise your handle
CIF?
winifred mccartney says:
17 July, 2020 at 5:32 pm
The above figures for deaths has bothered me for ages and I cannot get it
It says the figures for NI,0 Wales 1 and Scotland 0 then England 16 then UK 114 – what am I not seeing/understanding.
Help!
Maybe it’s ex regio deaths whereby the deaths are attributed to a non existent territory in order to avoid crediting them where they actually belong.
Me Bungo Pony says:
17 July, 2020 at 9:08 pm
@Graeme
They’re all over the thread mate. Do your own research.
—————————————————————–
I can’t find one. point me to one you can copy/paste can’t you ?
@ Gary 45% at 8.12
M Hunter’s comment appears ATL in a tweet.
@CamB –
It was just a wee joke FFS, lighten up!
😉
@WhoRattledYourCage says:
schrodingers cat says
how people whae want an indy list party are stupid, ‘simples,’
———————-
except i didnt. you just imagined that
Bingo Pony Sturgeon has had five years to work toward Independence and did nothing dumbass.
schrodingers cat
Not engaging with you anymore. Thanks for the backnforth. Bye.
Andy Ellis says: at 9:01 pm
“Gie it a rest and show us the beef.”
Careful Andy, that’ll probably soon be classed as hate speech if you say it to a woke as fuck vegetarian!
Probably best if we update the slogan to “Show us the ethically sourced tofu or houmous!”* 😉
*Clearly as a progressive and law abiding denizen of the planet, I reserve the right to update this in the future once #BeanLivesMatter and #PeaLivesMatter start trending on t’internet.
@schrodingers cat
CIF? I can’t think what that means.
Mr Bungle we need you out of the system as well.
What is it with the hardcore defense of the SNP?
Every negative comment must be countered (notice I didn’t say ‘answered’)
Every skeptic must be painted as a conspiracy theorist.
I knew the SNP had become dangerous to Scotland years ago as soon as they showed their heavy ‘social justice’ leaning, but this level of cult behavior is actually quite sinister.
What the fuck does Nicola Sturgeon have to do to convince you that she is not going to bring you independence?
At this point she could burn a Saltire on live TV while singing god save the queen and people would be here, making excuses, painting people as conspiracy theorists who happen to think she behaved oddly as first minister of Scotland.
@WhoRattledYourCage says:
schrodingers cat
Ur ye jist a paid SNP troll, or Ross Greer pouting n praying tae Jesus fae ahint his keyboard? BIZARRE.
——————
i neither pout or pray to sky faeries and if im ross greer, im about to get fired from the greens for what ive posted about them here today
How’s Zippy and George? I heard your human died a few years ago . Sad was it covid?
cif
guardian, or was it on a thread about wind turbines opposite dundee?
@WhoRattledYourCage
SC doesn’t think the List party thing is mad. We disagree on that.
@Me Bungo Pony –
CIF could be the ‘Comment Is Free’ section of the Guardian.
Then again, it could be something else…
Joe says:
What is it with the hardcore defense of the SNP?
something to do with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
voting snp in the constituency in the next holyrood election is our route to indy
worth defending
@SC
I was involved in a mad debate over wind turbines near Newburgh. The anti’s were cock-a-hoop when they got them stopped. Which is ironic as there’s loads near there now.
It’s only possible to call this gaming the system if a new indy party was just the SNP by another name.
Dave Thompson has quit the SNP to form AFI.
His AFI MSPs would not take the SNP whip.
Their sole purpose would be the immediate promotion of independence.
The fact is that around 80,000 to 100,000
votes cast for the SNP in each region elects nobody.
How an elector casts their vote can’t ever be cheating BTW. Unless you do it more than once that is.
Ian Brotherhood
Sorry mate, it’s not always easy to catch the nuance on t’internet. 😉
bingo me bungo pony, i used to tag with you on the comments section, i was very pro. 🙂 i told one of the antis, the “bear with the sore head” that bears usually shit in the woods not on their doorstep 🙂
Me Bugle SNP you sound very much like a paid Government mouthpiece.
Sturgeons game is plain enough.She conspires against the Scottish people.
You see fool, all Governments work in secret or does’Nicola’ let you in the room during meetings?
@ianbh
re cif
correct
@SC
Honestly I respect your dedication even if I disagree with you. You are doing some serious online activism for what you believe in.
But really – never letting anything slip looks like the actions of an unthinking fanatic rather than an activist. Especially when its pretty clear where NS now stands on the issue.
@Rick
The trick is to get those 80,000 to 100,000 people to go along with the plan. Only a tiny minority will be on-line zealots aware of the ruse. The rest are ordinary punters either oblivious or uncaring about it.
@CamB –
Not much nuance going on I’m afraid, and if I was a proper smartarse I would’ve made some reference to Zippy.
Have a braw evening!
😉
“Me Bungo Pony says:
17 July, 2020 at 8:39 pm
I can only hope the malcontents on this thread constitute a very small minority of those who support Scottish independence. If they constitute a substantial proportion, then independence is doomed”
Malcontents, don’t you mean realists, not only does Sturgeon intend not to hold a indyref in the coming years, the SNP coffers are empty as well.
No Me Bong Pony you’re a fantatist if you actually believe Sturgeon intends to hold a second indyref, she and Blackford, have previous form, both wailing a bawling that Scotland wouldn’t be dragged out of the EU we were,and Sturgeon and Blackford meekly gave way to Westminster.
I won’t be surprised one little bit if Sturgeon and Blackford go through the same motions, as Westminster seize the powers coming back from the EU, meant for Scotland.
Roll on Salmond’s book and inquiry the SNP needs a good clear out.
Sturgeon is no Gough Whitlam that’s for sure.
Gregory Beekman with the ‘science’ behind him. You fool our lives have been turned upside down by this house arrest and destruction of the economy and you speak of science you buffoon.
@joe
Especially when its pretty clear where NS now stands on the issue.
———————
strange, i havent heard her say anything about anything other than the virus for 5 months
you may not like her, but suggesting she is against indy is ridiculous
I think it would hugely improve the quality of debate on this site if people would refrain from referring to Nicola Sturgeon as “The dyke fae Dreghorn”, and from resorting to insults and name-calling in general. If Rev Stu was to institute a strict policy of banning anyone who does this, he would have my full support. There’s every justification for using ‘robust’ language to express our views, especially given the situation in which we presently find ourselves, but referring to people by insulting names is just infantile and gratuitously offensive, and adds nothing of worth to the discussion. I would add that Nicola Sturgeon’s sexual orientation has no relevance whatsoever to her worth as a politician, and is nobody’s business but her own. Can we please stick to the arguments? We urgently need to find a way forward.
@SC
That site got very toxic. Even STV did a bulletin on it. The “Bear”, as you call him even published my name and address in the hope something nasty would happen. He wisnae right in the He is.
@MBP
no he wasnt, his partner kicked him out after the campaign, the polis felt his collar, he moved on to another unsuspecting community
never seen again
The Scientist Ferguson’s crazy computer models is not science. A little girl shouting out a list of climate complaints is not science.Wearing a face mask long after the covid horse has bolted is not science.There is much in politics that isn’t science but a confidence trick to part everyone from their hard earned wages.
Read the McAlpine piece.
Over egged the SNP bad a tad.
To say they have a terrible record in government doesn’t ring true imo.
Even most of their high profile pro indy detractors such as Craig Murray have said they are excellent administraors/governors.
And the electorate of Scotland seem to think they are too, despite an entirely unionist media.
They have transformed Scotland with substantial social housing developments,free prescriptions, bedroom tax mitigation, small business rates relief etc., all within a fixed Westminster constraint.
These are progressive achievements relative to what any unionist party would have even attempted.
They may not have been vocal/dynamic enough for some regards indyref.
But as Alex Salmond himself said,
‘You govern for all, or you govern for no-one’.
If they had been constantly banging on about indy to a majority unionist electorate whilst not doing a good job of governing Scotland, they would’ve been ejected before now.
That said, we need to up the ante with a strong pro indy list party now.
A pincer movement on the union, if you like.
Michael Laing would it be worth it to get your support?
Dreghorn Dyke I find is much snappier.
@SC
Ahh…so she planning on striking when the iron is hot? I see.
So – Brexit comes along (which I support but thats besides the point), Scots unanimously vote against it but its to happen anyway.
The iron wasn’t hot enough for striking at this point, clearly.
Boris Johnson gets elected with threats of hard Brexit and his hints at ‘strengthening the Union’.
Still not hot enough to strike. Apparently.
The Brexit deadline passes with hardly a whimper and now she has just said that she wont consider indy until the economic effects of Covid have been dealt with. Which will be a fair wee while.
…but wants to be returned to power in Scotland as leader of the pro independence party…while threatening legislation that would be an absolute assault on human rights
Is it possible, even by the tiniest of possibilities, that you are clutching at straws here? Has it crossed your mind?
@SC
Not surprised she threw him out. Apparently his antics led to her car getting vandalised. He tried to blame me for that because …. reasons. Mainly because he was a nutter.
The SNPs highly dangerous Hate speech Bill is enough to put me off them. I see that Bill as a threat to online forums like this as well as everyday speech also the Bill allows for people to be prosecuted for ‘offensive’ material on their bookshelves. The culture of denial in the SNP acolyte is frightening, astounding hard to fathom.
@MBP
aye, a total spanner, newburgh much better now he’s gone
i think he used to do the pa at dens park? dunno what happened in dundee but he hated it when he got to newburgh
as i said, complete balloon
It doesn’t feel that long ago that I had a front row seat in the Volunteer Rooms in Irvine to hear NS and Denis Canavan talk about indyref1. This was in September 2013.
Nicola’s speech that night followed the same structure she frequently used back then: ‘We can be independent. We should be independent. We must be independent.’
It was a brilliantly simple template, adaptable to any circumstances. (She had used it, just days previously, as a tool in the watch-between-yer-fingers humiliation of Anas Sarwar, hosted by STV’s Scotland Tonight.) It was clear she could do it in her sleep. The audience loved it, and loved her.
Look where we are now.
If those currently slating us via btl comments on WGD and SGP seriously and honestly wonder why so many Yes/Indy supporters (not just ‘Wingers’) are properly pissed off with her, look at this report of that public meeting, and compare the language she used then with the utterances we’ve become used to over the past couple of years:
https://www.irvinetimes.com/news/13743273.crowd-of-200-for-public-meeting-on-indy-ref-in-irvine/
I would say about 95% if Scottish women haven’t got a clue what little surprise Sturgeon has up her sleeve for them.
All the see is this nice wee wummin on their tv everyday talking about the Corona Virus.
All the other business is parked safely out of sight of the hard of thinking, if only they knew what was coming down the line for them.
@Republicofscotland
The “previous” you refer to was not in their gift. Polling after those events still showed Scots were, at best, reticent about another indyref. When it gets to a point of sustained support for an indyref and YES, that is the time to go for it. But not during a pandemic. That would be an own goal of monumental consequence.
WhoRattledYourCage gets his cage rattled by SC and blows a fuse, retreats to his cage with his tail between his legs LOL
Ross Greer did excellent work during the Yes campaign 2012-14. He was probably one of the most helpful people in the YES campaign centre. I dealt with him several times.
His hard work around the Loch Lomond “holiday park” campaign was outstanding. His performance at public meetings was excellent.
I have not and will not vote Green. However the character assassination by several posters here is disgraceful. Have we really reached the point that lynch mob mentality is all?
Have any of you actually worked with him? Is this the Scotland we are building?
The reason there is a ‘cheating’ bandwagon to leap upon is because DT and others are presenting it in that way. As a ‘maximize the votes’ option, the voting equivalent of money-laundering. ‘Give us your votes and we will immediately hand them back to the SNP’. It’s an extremely damaging stance.
Enough pressure needs to be applied to remove Sturgeon. To play their part in this, they must be a genuine party, with a principled platform. A genuine alternative to the SNP, with their main policy position being give the people of Scotland a choice NOW, not at some indefinite date in the future when Brexit has done irreparable damage to Scotland and the UK government has as much time as it needs to dismantle the devolution settlement.
@Julia Gibb
Greer was also the person scuttling around telling Yes groups to have nothing to do with the Wee Blue Book, as several people at the time confirmed. His animus against Wings and anyone supporting it is obvious.
The last thing most Yessers want is ideological extremists like Greer and his ilk advancing their profoundly regressive and misogynistic “TWAW/ There Is No Debate” line.
The SNP rose to prominence very quickly and they can fall from Grace just as quickly. They need to take note of labours demise.
Perhaps Pete Wishart and co realise only too well that they won’t do aswell as folk think In may 2021. There is a lot of water to flow under the bridge before then. Of course if they don’t win as many constituency seats then they really will rely on the list and they won’t necessarily have the votes this time.
That said, they can no longer be trusted to have a monopoly on independence. Sure there are still plenty within the party outwith the inner sect who want independence yesterday. Perhaps in time they can change things, but we can’t wait for that to happen. It might not.
The greens are the most underperforming and underwhelming party at holyrood. I have been utterly convinced about runaway climate change for the past decade as have many more people in the last few years but they still don’t seem to be able to capitalise on this. Having been a member for a very short time it was easy to see why. They won’t get my vote.
We absolutely need further pro-Indy representation in holyrood, not just to bolster the ‘pro-Indy’ majority but to seriously challenge the SNP on the constituency vote at subsequent elections. The priority has to be preserving a YES majority that will push on to independence, otherwise wales might get there first!
The reason I dropped my green membership in the end was Andy wightman wading in to the salmond case, backing the mainstream view that he was basically guilty even though he had been found innocent. This was just after the law had come good for wightman in his own court case which I donated money to.
Sad to say but I’ll be glad to see some greens drop in 2021.
Scotland will simply not be able to transform to a low carbon economy without independence.
@Graeme 8:19pm
An explanation of the d’Hondt method of calculating seats to be allocated and the Additional Member System of Voting, was covered by Wings 5 years ago – if it’s any help.
The actual mathematics of d’Hondt can be as complex as you wish to delve into. There are various other mathematical models which have been used for similar voting systems – for varying degrees of (contested) relative proportionality – it’s very much a heavily academic field of study.
This article gives a fair shot at simplification without resorting to the minutiae of relative mathematics.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/ams-for-lazy-people/
‘Runaway climate change’ galloping madness.
The SNP first came to power not because they people voted SNP on the list. They voted “Alex Salmond for First Minister”.
Would 30% of the electorate vote for him leading a list party?
Absolutely.
Does it matter if half the electorate can’t stand him?
Not in the slightest.
A single option list party/coalition of parties with the man leading the way will sweep half the unionists from the parliament next May and put the fear of God into those who tried to destroy him.
Of that I have no doubt.
Mr Salmond, I imagine you are reading this. There are many good people in the SNP. You owe them nothing. You owe us nothing.
By fate or design, your successor does not have the ability, means, or desire to fulfil our dream. If Scotland is to stand redeemed, equal, and free, we need a bombastic, uncompromising, independence, nothing less, political warrior in this fight for our nation’s future.
Revenge is a dish best served by 25 list MSPs.
Jim says.
“Enough pressure needs to be applied to remove Sturgeon. To play their part in this, they must be a genuine party, with a principled platform. A genuine alternative to the SNP, with their main policy position being give the people of Scotland a choice NOW, not at some indefinite date in the future”
Are there any people here reading this crap and actually believing this is some kind of a REAL possibility?
WHO could possibly give “Scotland a choice now” even if they won the seats of every list MSP in Scotland? What would they do then, march on London and demand Independence?
They could do that now without any MSP’s so why isn’t it happening Jim? Some here are seriously deluded, those taken in by this type of crap are even more deluded.
You will at some point need to start treating the politics of Independence as a serious matter and not childish fantasy wishful thinking of what you want it to be like.
Classical and neo-liberal economic theories and dogma insists culture is a product of economic development and activity. A more critical appreciation of social structuration and human behaviour suggests that this opinion is mince. Culture actually shapes the nature, potential, and performance of the economy.
The Tories do not support the precautionary principle nor the concept of environmental justice. They do appear to believe they are culturally entitled to continue to subjugate and exploit Scotland.
https://web.uri.edu/iaics/files/02-Robert-N.-St.-Clair.pdf
ScottieDog says:
Scotland will simply not be able to transform to a low carbon economy without independence.
——————
spot on, i point out to greens at every moment i can that it is pointless to pursue green agenda when westminster can undo our efforts at the drop of a hat. the carbon capture fiasco in scotland a case in point. btw, shell spent £230 million on the project at long gannet before cameron pull the plug on the £1 billion of promised government money
I used to be a huge fan of WGD but his recent posts have become somewhat of a Nicola Sturgeon love-in. He even wrote a sycophantic article praising Ms. Sturgeon, around the same time that the good Rev. called for her to step down.
I really don’t understand his reasoning, although he has been cosying up to ScotGoesPop recently, which may tell you something.
At best, his posts are nothing more than wishful thinking.
schrodinger’s cat
Boy, you post some pish.
There is NO WAY give the current strength of the SNP: massive majority over the Tories at Holyrood and at Westminster: 62%-38% vote for remaining in the EU – that the Tories will ever agree to a section 30 order.
The same goes for Labour, who are all but finished in Scotland.
The London-based parties will never agree to Scottish Independence until teh day after the last barrel of oil comes ashore from Scottish waters.
I am not calling for a cull of Unionist MSP’s – that’s a given to anyone who supports Independence.
What I am calling for is a cull of those SNP party apparatchiks, who hve no intention of pushing for Independence, in case it compromises their nice little well-paying jobs. They are the enemy within we need to get rid of, to force the SNP to get off their fat arses and fight for Independence, something they have not been doing for the past 6 years.
Sure, we’ve had plenty of rhetoric
Whoops! hit the wrong button.
As I was saying – plenty of rhetoric: Blackford and his: “Scotland will not be dfragged out of the EU,” but, not a lot of actual action. Past time for a change and a real push for Independence.
crazycat@9.10
Cheers.
Nicola can’t take back her comment on Newsnight. The one where She said indi ref 2 can’t happen until the economic effects of Covid are over.
Every time she tries to say independence is not far away. People will remember the truth spoken in that short sentence. She has no intention of pursuing independence.
The games up, and she needs to go. We didn’t elect her to become Jack McConnell. Every person who tells us all to trust in Nicola. Is suffering from cognitive dissonence.
Would we be called cheats if we put together a “Real Scotland First Labour Party”
There is no party registration for a Scottish Labour Party as the only one is London based.
Maybe we could for another new party called the Lib Cons of Scotland.
Is there a limit on Unionist Parties seeking election in Holyrood or is it
Only applicable actual Scotland First /Independence parties.
Were UKIP and the Brexit Party not seeking votes up here?
So we can have 5 English based parties here but no more than one Scottish?
Ayeright
So what your saying is that if a majority of Scots vote for independence parties, and virtually every seat in the parliament is held by yes MSP’s then independence is a fantasy? That it makes no difference ?
If that is the case that there is no democratic route to independence, then there is no point voting at all.
That’s a very dangerous road to take when there are so many people committed to such a grand cause.
You who attack the notion of people voting for parties and ideals they believe in would do well to remember that.
OK
Who do want to lead us to the promised land if it aint FM Sturgeon?
She will get us there perhaps slower and more cautiously than I wish but my hurry is my age. My children and grandchildren are much more patient and no they do not want GRA and hate crime legislation but confidentially see it being repealed after indy if we were to go there.
For their sake I will be patient too and keep taking the vitamin pills and doing Joe Wickes.
Socrates MacSporran says:
schrodinger’s cat
Boy, you post some pish.
There is NO WAY give the current strength of the SNP: massive majority over the Tories at Holyrood and at Westminster: 62%-38% vote for remaining in the EU – that the Tories will ever agree to a section 30 order.
———————–
where have i ever suggested they would?. i dont think they ever will.. if you actually read what i wrote, im calling for the next holyrood election to be turned into an indy plebiscite. no need for a s30.
————————–
The London-based parties will never agree to Scottish Independence until teh day after the last barrel of oil comes ashore from Scottish waters.
————————
they may not, but we have a route to a democratic plebiscite with a potential 50%+. i will wait until that happens and wm refuse before i dig my claymore out of the thatch.
——————————-
I am not calling for a cull of Unionist MSP’s – that’s a given to anyone who supports Independence.
————————
good, im calling for the same thing, maybe we are both posting pish?
——————–
What I am calling for is a cull of those SNP party apparatchiks,
———————-
how you gonna do that, nicola is extremely popular with the voters. why would you do that 9 months before this election?
———————–
They are the enemy within we need to get rid of, to force the SNP to get off their fat arses and fight for Independence, something they have not been doing for the past 6 years.
————————-
im snp, ive been campaigning very hard for indy, so have many others. we now have a majority in support for indy, something we have never had before
If England decided to hold a referendum on English independence, would they seek permission, no,they would just do it. They hold the power and they don`t give a shit about rUK or what it thinks.
Sturgeon has betrayed us all especially the ones who still believe she is remotely interested in independence.
Thank god you are still here Stu. Sometimes I think I have gone quite mad. Then I read your articles and think ‘Nope, I’m still sane. It’s the rest of them that are bonkers’. I agree with everything in your article. Depressing, infuriating, frustrating. But true.
Cat you had you’re warning…last chance
@cartamac
whats the problem?
Famous15
What if these GRA amendments and Hate Crime Bill proceed, without indy being secured first? Scotland’s judicial system is currently incapable of defining protection of our economic, social, and cultural rights. This is because Scots law is subourdinate to English legal culture and Britain is one nation, apparently. So how long do you think Scotland’s potential for self-determination will survive, if Scotland’s public sphere becomes even more of a stranger to the principles of due legal process and justice?
.
Hi WhoRattledYourCage,
I liked your comment.
For what it’s worth, best not rattle the flea-infested, mange-ridden shat-cat.
The poor deranged person hiding behind that shat-cat nom de plume has posted up to 100 times a day here. He/she/it polluted a record breaking 28% of one WoS thread a while back.
I made the mistake of trying to get sense or reasoned debate out of that trolling rabid rodent ruminator and lost several hours of my life used up by shat-cat.
Meanwhile Andy Ellis writes a lot of sense following MeBungo’s durge.
It perplexes me how many Sturgeonite people comment on this Wings of Scotland website AFTER ALL THE FORENSIC INVESTIGATION AND REPORTING by the site owner of the problems at the top of the CURRENT SNP leadership as if there are NO problems at all.
If nothing else, think on these two things:-
A). Labour dominated Scottish politics for decades until they got found out abusing the trust of the electorate.
B). As one of those abused Labour voters, I left New and Old Labour and “lent” my vote to the SNP. I became one of the 100,000 new members when I joined the SNP and gave my money and time to support it. The SNP treated me as a second class member. An ex-Labour refugee.
The SNP’s current lead will vanish like snow off a dyke when those vast swathes of the “ordinary” semi-engaged electorate realise the SNP leadership had its fingerprints all over the effort to frame Alex Salmond and put him in jail for many years just out of political expediency.
Then of course we have the political car crash that will see JK Rolling on trial and possibly jailed as part of the SNP GRA McWoke lobby’s political strategy.
The minorly arrogant attitude of some SNP Sturgeonites here that they DESERVE the permanent votes of many former Labour voters will bite them in their erses.
Westminster will be back to the ineffective Mike Wier MP and wannabe speaker Pete Wishart MP plus 7 other SNP MPs as ever was the case in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
Scottish Labour bit the dust spectacularly and decisively. The SNP can and will go the same way.
We are at the last chance saloon. The best bet by far is Alex Salmond’s IndyRef2 Guarateed Party gains 23 List MSPs in May 2021 and goes into coalition government with the SNP. Alex serves as DFM and the new Leader of the SNP Joanna Cherry would become First Minister.
I would vote SNP first vote with Joanna Cherry leading and
Second LIST-ONLY vote to Alex Salmond.
Otherwise with over-promoted Indy-allergic Nicola Sturgeon in charge, I will just wait until a new party comes into being that I can vote for. But Sturgeon must be gone from stultifying the wishes of all of us who put her into Bute House.
——————————————————————————————————————————–
Earlier post by…
WhoRattledYourCage says:
17 July, 2020 at 9:08 pm
schrodingers cat says:
‘i have no knowledge of nicola, the snp or salmond,
thats why i avoid making unfounded statements about ongoing investigations’
Yer sitting here making statement eftir statement eftir statement aboot the SNP’s (tae yer mind, excellent) efficacy, how we should no be snatching defeat fae the jaws af victory, how people whae want an indy list party are stupid, ‘simples,’ but ye ‘have no knowledge of nicola, the snp, or salmond’? Eh? Whit? Why the hell ur ye even commenting here, then, if ye dinnae ken whit yer talking aboot? Ur ye jist a paid SNP troll, or Ross Greer pouting n praying tae Jesus fae ahint his keyboard? BIZARRE.
Let me explain
Not everybody is the problem.
You need to differentiate.
If you continue with this machine gun approach
Either A : I will destroy you
Or B : you will destroy yourself
I believe your a good guy, but put a lid on it,bro.
@Davie Oga
Care to spell out for us all the “ideals” of the new indy list parties ISP and AFI?
@caramac
socrates posted a comment to me??
i answered him
whats the problem?
Don’t be picky
Shut up
Dogbiscuit
You’re right in one respect – don’t get your science from politicians or political journalists or even from school girls or middle-class arty types with money-enough to go and lie down on London streets for a posh little jolly.
But behind all that, there is real science – it’s not perfect because there’s still a lot we don’t know and are trying to understand. However, science has given us a tremendous understanding of the world that we have used to transform our world – computers, smart phones, satellite TV, probes to other planets, telescopes, sending men to the moon, electricity generation, batteries, lasers, antibiotics, anti-virals, vaccines, x-rays, the internal combustion engine and so much more.
Science communication is awful in this country – TV news will have sports’ news every hour but why not science news? – but that doesn’t mean science itself is awful.
@caramac
scroll past mon ami
Ayeright
ISP – focus on promoting and pushing for independence not fake chicks with dicks.
AFI – not sure
Destroy yourself,good
Gregory Beekman says:
18 July, 2020 at 12:08 am
Dogbiscuit
————-
I wouldn’t worry about the dug. He thinks the moon is made of cheese.
robbo says: at 12:30am
smiley face
smiley face
thumbs up
(A shame there’s no likes or emojis on here, so I wrote them out.)
Schrodinger
A couple of myths that seem to be accepted as fact are that independence was at 28% at the start of the referendum campaign.
The other is that support for independence has never been higher than under the current leadership and that there is majority support for the first time.
This is historical revisionism.
Independence had consistent majority support over 10 or 12 polls in 1998/99
Also majority support when a binary question was asked in 2000 and 2006.
Ironically independence polled lowest in 2006 to 2009 during the first SNP administration.
I would suggest that the support has always been there for the taking. To gain independence requires both the ability to harness that support and the mechanism to to deliver independence.
The current strategy, if you can call doing nothing a strategy, has seen support rise to near the historical high point ( I believe that was 56% in 1998), but a total abandonment of the mechanism to deliver.
The SNP are coasting along mainly because of the lack of alternatives in Scotland and the car crash governance in Westminster. Also, even unionists must despair when considering Carlaw or Reinhold Leopold as a potential First Minister.
Lowest support 2007 to 2009
The need for a second pro-independence party to compete with the SNP is obvious.
Proportional representation makes it achievable using the list seat system, so please, don’t just think about it.
Either Wings, or someone like Alex Salmond, needs to go ahead and do it.
Classy debate about independence here again tonight then?
@CameronB Brodie says:
17 July, 2020 at 11:52 pm
“What if these GRA amendments and Hate Crime Bill proceed, without indy being secured first?”
As Al-Stuart pointed out above, JKR would likely be the first target, probably with certain SNP figures “making a complaint”. The police are duty-bound to investigate allegations.
It would be political suicide for the SNP if that happened. Not only that, if JKR was arrested it would be instant global news. What would that do for Scotland’s reputation? Even worse, imagine the fallout if there was a conviction?
Why the fuck are they hell-bent on driving through a law that smacks of sexcrime or thoughtcrime from 1984?
If GRA goes through, and the above scenario happens, forget independence for a long, long time.
I’m not being anti-trans. There are already laws in place to protect people who are victimised because of their gender identity / sexuality etc.
Is this the definition of smeg head?
Recognising identity and intent isn’t that hard, but here’s some stuff anyway. Mkay?
Full text.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14681360400200194
Earlier today I posted information about some of the nasties that Westminster have promised to visit on us after Brexit. How can anyone think what they’re saying and still believe that we don’t have to move quickly before they cover the Scottish Government and Holyrood in quick drying cement, from which there will be no escape.
https://angryweegie.wordpress.com/2020/07/17/is-it-do-or-die-time-for-scotland/
Incoming troll, lister.
bye
Petitions are a good way of publicising political concern, so what about a petition to the International Court of Justice, appealing against Westminster’s majoritarian populist constitutionalism?.
Scots are not sub-human and we are entitled to access human rights. Westminster is institutionally racist though, and intent on determining British democracy through the lens of authoritarian English Torydum.
The Treaty of Union indicates Scotland and England are equal legal entities, and it is still active, though Westminster would rather not recognise that fact of INTERNATIONAL LAW.
Even in this shamocracy it is bizzare in the extreme to see unionists claim that having 3 unionist parties is OK but that there must be only 1 indy party.
Another great article Rev, thank you! BTW, I’ve unblocked Geer to deliver this bedtime reading to him because being a “Christian” is what he claims to be so it follows he must be interested in the truth, right? 🙂
__________
MWS says on 17 July, 2020 at 11:39 pm:
“Thank god you are still here Stu. Sometimes I think I have gone quite mad. Then I read your articles and think ‘Nope, I’m still sane. It’s the rest of them that are bonkers’. I agree with everything in your article. Depressing, infuriating, frustrating. But true.”
And *that* is exactly why they hate him and what makes him stand out from other bloggers & political hacks etc. The truth! And the fact he’ll deliver it whether it hurts or not. That makes him dangerous to the “established”.
To the people saying that the HCB and the GRA can be repealed after independence I cannot understand the acceptance of these lunatic policies even for a short while , the very FACT that so many people have voiced total opposition to these reviled policies should have sent the message clearly and unequivocally that these policies are not acceptable
I think we can all accept that we want a Scottish government to govern responsibly for the citizens of Scotland and obviously that means all Scots , but how can it be logical and sensible that a government is so entrenched and determined in pushing policies that benefit a maximum of 2% of the population whilst alienating and impacting on the rights and protections of at least 50% of the population
The intransigence and deliberate ignoring of peoples rightful vociferous objections to these policies shows the CONTEMPT that the SNP SG has for it’s voters , which is extremely concerning as what will be pushed forward next that we will just have to accept
Ayeright @5.51pm
Read what I wrote. I said elections I never mentioned Holyrood. While I still have the ability to vote in the next ‘UK’ election in 2024, then I have as much right as anyone else to express my opinion on any of the political parties, including the SNP.
This from UK snap election debate at Westminster in April 2017 –
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
I am very grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. I can understand that she wants to give the House the opportunity to determine whether there should be an election, but if the House determines that now is the time, why is it that the Prime Minister stands in the face of the Scottish ?Parliament and the Scottish Government, which have voted for a referendum on Scotland’s future? If it is right that the people here have a voice and a vote on the future of this country, why should not the Scottish people be given a vote as well?
The Prime Minister (T May)
Now is the time for a general election because it will strengthen our hand in the negotiations on Brexit. Now is not the time for a second Scottish independence referendum because it would weaken our hand in the negotiations on Brexit. Strength and unity with the Conservatives; division and weakness with the Scottish nationalists.
‘a second Indyref would weaken our (UK) hand in Brexit negotiations’.
Plain as day. Scotland voted to remain in EU, ‘England as the UK’ voted to leave. So no S30 from London and to date, no other plan from Edinburgh.
How many times after that clear answer from London did the SNP waste valuable time whining on about a S30. Acting like a spoilt child over and over. No wonder the SNP are treated as a joke in Westminster.
Whatever negative views I may have about the tories, I can’t accuse them of dithering since 2016. They have been relentless & ruthless in driving for their primary objective – Brexit. They made big changes as they felt necessary. It’s a pity the SNP have not shown a similar drive for their supposed primary objective of independence, despite unbelievably lengthy and favourable circumstances in which to do so.
If we Indy supporters had been clever and wanted to game the system they should have infiltrated the Labour Party. Took over branch meetings by sheer numbers. Voted in 1 of our supporters as the candidate.
By sheer numbers we would have had control of the Labour Party and forced change. After all its what happened futing the Blair years. we missed a golden chance to mske it a real Scottish Labour Party with the interests of Scotland at Heart.
Instead thd SNP has been infiltrated by the Woke brigade telling the SNP which way to jump.
Indy supporters have to get smarter and beat the establishment at their own game.
Politics isn’t rocket science but the art of fooling people with false promises.
I don’t support the GRAs apparent desire to allow penises into vagina only areas. I don’t support the desire to move to 7 day working in the NHS because the logistics don’t make sense. In short, I don’t support everything the SNP currently want to do. Just as not every Tory supports everything Cummings wants to do or Labour voters support everything their “Lord” wants to do.
I’m still going to vote SNP 1&2 though, because it gives us our best chance of achieving independence. The “cunning plan” will blow up in people’s faces as a largely oblivious electorate ignore it. The Pop-ups will only be a marginal but crucial drain on SNP List votes and a fertile source of unionist anti-indy rhetoric, risking a significant fall in the constituency vote. That would make the List vote all the more important but, thanks to the “cunning plan”, less productive of MSPs than it should be. Result: a beaming faced Jackson Carlaw all over the MSM.
Why, with support for the SNP so high, support for an SNP FM so high and, consequently, support for independence so high would you sweep the ground from under them? Anyone who thinks that will get us independence any sooner is, as I previously said, DUMB AS F**K.
@Ian
What, exactly, would you have them do? What, exactly, could they do in the circumstances? Start a revolution? I doubt the Scottish people would get behind that. Have a wildcat referendum? Easily delegitamised by unionist non-compliance. Declare UDI? Not much good if the rest of the World says “Naw” and leading Indys end up behind bars.
I read a lot of posts about how the Pop-Ups will ensure that Independence gets done …. but no actual plan, cunning or not, is put forward as to how they will achieve it. It seems their very presence is deemed to be enough for it to happen.
The reality is, independence will only happen when the majority of Scots are solidly behind it. Something that is only now starting to happen. Why destroy all the work that has gotten us here just to take a petulant swipe at the SNP leadership?
@ Bungo
This “What’s your cunning plan? Why won’t you just wheesht for indy and trust Nicola?” bullshit has to stop.
Plebiscitary elections are the plan. It’s hardly news. We aren’t going to get a “Gold Standard” S30 order approved #indyref2: firstly British nationalists have zero reason to agree to one, but more importantly wetnat gradualists have implicitly accepted that we need permission to exercise our self determination. No wonder our Irish cousins laugh at our ancestral cringe.
There is no down side to a list only party which turfs yoon bench warmers out of Holyrood. Of course we need a majority to vote for indy, but it won’t matter if 60% are solidly behind indy if the SNP which purports to be the main (or even only) vehicle to achieve indy has neither the courage nor the means to effect a vote.
As Robin McAlpine said, tell us your plan. Magical thinking à la Pete Wishart that Boris will somehow feel constrained to graciously “allow” us a vote when we have our umpteenth mandate, or consistently poll 60% (or 66, or 70….why not 99?), or when the effects of Covid-19 economic crisis is finally dealt with (#indyref2 in 2039 anyone?) is NOT a plan.
Get back to us when you have something coherent to offer us other than “trust us”: we just don’t.
@ Michael Laing 9.34 – well said. I agree. Stu could make it a rule that anyone who insults a person for their sexual orientation will be banned. No debate (to coin a phrase).
So some are more speshul than others Capella?
This wrong-think culture is why the tranny debacle is even possible!
Good to see Joanna Cherry pointing out that, in the end, the remedy to the British nationalist veto of #indyref2 is political (via independence) not legal (via the courts).
It does rather beg the question however: why didn’t the SNP put the legal question beyond doubt immediately upon Theresa May telling us “now is not the time”?
It’s all very well to be eagerly awaiting developments (especially when those developments had to be initiated by some random pro-indy member of the public) but wouldn’t it have demonstrated a bit more commitment if she and the party had ensured this issue had already been put to bed?
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1284029330989953024
@Andy Ellis
“Plebiscitary elections are the plan”.
Really? That’s the plan? Exactly the same plan as the SNP?
As far as I’m concerned, “the plan” should be;
Step1: get sustained majority support for independence in the polls (that has begun thanks to Nicola Sturgeon)
Step2: get an SNP govt in Holyrood with a comfortable majority (looking very probable, again thanks to Nicola Sturgeon, if the Pop-Ups don’t manage to sabotage it)
Step3: give Westminster a final chance to grant an S30 order on the back of Steps 1&2 being achieved, thereby possibly putting the issue beyond doubt (they won’t grant it)
Step4: assuming Cummings refuses a S30 order, declare UDI as proposed by Peter A Bell on his blog. With Steps 1&2 firmly in place and a sympathetic EU/international community, it is our best chance of achieving independence …. in my opinion.
Will the SNP follow my favoured route? I don’t know. Will the Pop-Ups achieve Scottish independence by the mere fact of their existence? No. But they do present a threat to “my plan”, so I will oppose the essentially undeliverable “cunning plan” in the hope it’s proponents see sense and abandon it.
@Andy Ellis
“why didn’t the SNP put the legal question beyond doubt immediately upon Theresa May telling us “now is not the time”?”
Because, as the Rev found to his cost, there is no guarantee they would have gotten an answer they would have liked. If the courts decided the Scottish govt could not hold a referendum without Westminster consent, it would have been a massive log (never mind stick) to beat Indys with for evermore. Therefore, the best “plan” (sic) was to leave it unanswered and thus still arguable from an Indy point of view.
Me Bungo Pony says: at 7:39 am
“I’m still going to vote SNP 1&2 though, because it gives us our best chance of achieving independence. The “cunning plan” will blow up in people’s faces as a largely oblivious electorate ignore it. The Pop-ups will only be a marginal but crucial drain on SNP List votes and a fertile source of unionist anti-indy rhetoric, risking a significant fall in the constituency vote. That would make the List vote all the more important but, thanks to the “cunning plan”, less productive of MSPs than it should be. Result: a beaming faced Jackson Carlaw all over the MSM.
Why, with support for the SNP so high, support for an SNP FM so high and, consequently, support for independence so high would you sweep the ground from under them? Anyone who thinks that will get us independence any sooner is, as I previously said, DUMB AS F**K.”
Voting SNP 1 & 2 is your choice. In a couple of the regions (Borders and Highlands & Islands) voting this way in those areas in the 2016 Holyrood election returned 3 and 1 SNP Regional List MSPs respectively.
If current SNP polling figures hold up then in the 6 out of 8 regions if a considerable amount of SNP 2nd votes were cast for an alternative Pro-Indy Party they could reduce the Unionist MSP contingent. 850k SNP 2nd votes did not return a single SNP List MSP in 6 out of the 8 regions.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking all that vote SNP are ardent supporters, some would be Greens supporters that didn’t have a candidate standing in their Constituency, some would be Labour supporters who tactically voted SNP to keep a Conservative out, some just voting for what they see as the least shit option, and quite a lot of Indy folk not voting at all…
With events since 2016 we know the remaining Labour support in Scotland is approx 30% for Indy.
I notice you previously asked how the wider electorate will know about an alternative Pro-Indy Party.
Eh, that will be the activists on the ground like me that have already planted the seed in the minds of friends and acquaintances about such a potential scenario developing more than a year ago, since it was becoming apparent a back up plan to provide an outlet to harvest the votes of disgruntled previous SNP supporters was required.
I’ve spent years communicating with folk about the logical and positive aspects of Scotland governing itself, that was an easy sell, but I can’t and won’t put myself in a position of having to defend woowoo policy on the doorsteps of my local communities.
So I am a free agent now and that’s three polling stations the SNP will now need to find someone else to cover.
If you’ve read my past thoughts on PIRLP concept you’ll know that with the limited time available to us a KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) strategy would be best scenario for various reasons with a single List Party ultimately becoming the one folk can get behind should they wish to do so.
The multiple PIRLPs forming now is possibly just jostling for positions or something more sinister, we’re watching to see what develops and then we can make our own call on the viability and worth of any new Party and strategy.
Also don’t forget that anybody campaigning for a PIRLP is likely still going to be recommending folk vote SNP with their 1st vote.
@Bungo
The SNP have specifically set their faces against the use of plebiscitary elections, as opposed to an independence referendum (which anyone with 2 brain cells knows is not going to be “granted”). A sustained majority for independence is meaningless unless and until the SNP accept that >50% of people voting for pro-independence parties at either Holyrood or Westminster elections is an automatic mandate for independence.
The size of the SNP’s majority at Holyrood signifies precisely nothing as long as they accept the primacy of Westminster, and that we need “permission” to exercise our self-determination. This really isn’t rocket science except to slavishly loyal hard of thinking Sturgeonites.
Anyone advocating taking the advice of the bloviating sage of Perth Mr Bell can be safely pointed at and laughed. White Rose Rising? Don’t make me laugh. UDI is a weapon of last resort: the international community won’t recognise it: the EU and UN aren’t going to act as the deus ex machina to hand us the independence we are too frit to take as our right.
When Martin Keating’s case is heard, the SNP will have nowhere left to hide. If the court finds against him, the only plausible route to independence is plebiscitary elections in 2021. If the court finds for him, Sturgeon and her fellow devolutionists will have no more excuse. You don’t have a plan. You have a faith based position.
@Bungo 9.24am
So now not having a plan is…a plan? Utter codswollop.
Certainty would mean we’d know British nationalists are never going to “give” us anything unless it suits them. It did suit them in 2012, it certainly doesn’t now.
You’re flailing badly here. Time to stop digging.
But Dan, the holes in your reasoning are manyfold.
(1) “Eh, that will be the activists on the ground like me that have already planted the seed in the minds of friends and acquaintances”
Yeah that worked really well for RISE in 2016. And just how many activists is that? You and a couple of mates? RISE weren’t exactly short of activists but it didn’t do them any good.
(2) “If you’ve read my past thoughts on PIRLP concept you’ll know that with the limited time available to us a KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) strategy”
But your not keeping it simple. James Kelly may be a sweary word here nowadays, but he is correct when he says that if your message leads with a detailed description of the d’Hondt system of proportional representation and how it works in conjunction with a FPTP system in the Scottish Parliament …. (and breathe) …. you’re pretty much buggered. (You’ll have to explain PIRLP as well. Again, hardly simple).
(3) “…. with a single List Party ultimately becoming the one folk can get behind should they wish to do so.”
There ARE a growing number of “Pythonesque” Pop-Ups and the blood letting and pet-lips required to narrow it all down to one option by next May will be more damaging than empowering. It could even damage the cause of independence as a whole as the general public, informed by a jubilant unionist MSM, get turned off by it.
(4) “The multiple PIRLPs forming now is possibly just jostling for positions or something more sinister ….”
That’s rather a big hope coupled with the beginnings of madness. The Pop-Ups are barely on the scene and already suspicion is rearing its ugly head between them. The Monty Python cliche becomes ever more apt.
It’s all too risky. The Pop-Up plan is arithmetically flawless and very attractive if you ignore the logistics. It’s too risky. We’ve come too far to throw it away now Just because THE established party of independence doesn’t reflect every view of every individual that shares their dream of independence.
Aye right the SNP idiot.
@Andy Ellis
“You’re flailing badly here. Time to stop digging.”
LOL!
Andy wrote; “A sustained majority for independence is meaningless unless and until the SNP accept that >50% of people voting for pro-independence parties at either Holyrood or Westminster elections is an automatic mandate for independence”.
As opposed to him also writing; “UDI is a weapon of last resort: the international community won’t recognise it: the EU and UN aren’t going to act as the deus ex machina to hand us the independence we are too frit to take as our right”.
You do realise you are both advocating and decrying UDI in the same post don’t you? Mr Bell advocates getting a majority SNP govt at Holyrood, declaring UDI on the back of it and then confirming that with a Holyrood run referendum. You advocate getting >50% voting for indy parties at Holyrood …. then declaring UDI!! At least read what you’ve written before pressing Submit.
The toxic moronic buffoon.
Someone built a dyke to block Independence.
Capelas always trying to censor people here.
SNP Bungle Pony .SNP flogged to death asshole.
Does Dogbiscuit have some form of Keyboard Tourettes?
@Bungo
Achieving >50% of the vote at plebiscitary elections where those parties have stood on a platform of majority = independence is actually much the more common route to independence historically than via referendum.
This is basic “Politics and IR Course 101” stuff. Plebiscitary elections and UDI are not the same thing. The fact you can’t discern the difference tells us a whole lot.
A majority government wouldn’t necessarily have a plurality of the vote. Remember the 2015 Westminster election? The SNP got 56 of 59 MPs with 50% of the vote: if they’d stood on a plebiscitary platform they could have made a legitimate case for indy which most of the international community (unlike in the Catalan case for example) would probably have recognised.
Similarly, it won’t matter if the SNP wins a majority of seats in Holyrood or Westminster if it isn’t clearly based on >50% of the popular vote AND clearly in response to a specific platform of a plebiscitary election being a mandate.
If you were studying IR and came out with stuff, you’d be given a failing mark.
Thus endeth the lesson.
@Andy Ellis
“So now not having a plan is…a plan”
Well, yes. This is hardly a new concept. Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and Clausewitz among many others have been advocating this for millennia. Perhaps you should read them. “The Art of War” and “The Prince” are not long reads.
Bungo -give it a rest. You don’t convince anyone by constantly harping on about NS is the one.
You vote for who you want and the rest of us will do the same.
We can work out for ourselves what’s happening, we can see the current SNP have nothing left to give.
You keep using the same excuse as the rest of the bowing at the feet of NS crowd. No one has said anything about campaigning during Covid.
The SNP should be bigging up Scotland and stop whinging about WM.
Either piss or get of the pot.
Meanwhile here in Ireland, in the European Union, even with dependent we are proceeding with our plans to continue to the centenary of Independence.
Scottish nationalists need to decide what’s more important. Do they prefer independence or to be party political purists. Anybody who thinks that the Scottish nationalist party would continue as a monolithic entity beyond a few years post an independent Scotland has really never read any history of postcolonial politics. you should vote for whoever you think has the best chance of delivering independence within the British constitution. it’s not immediately obvious looking from the outside but that is best served by a proliferation of parties each trying to be more pure than the other.
Greetings from the European Union where are independent Scotland would be welcome to the open arms and the fastest of tracks.
Me Bungo Pony says: at 10:21 am
“It’s all too risky.”
For who exactly?
It reads like you’re just trying to find issues to justify your position rather than provide real answers to address the real risk Scotland faces.
Your disparaging remarks about me and a couple of my mates, rather than the wider YES movement helping to progress the education of the electorate since 2016 reeks of someone protecting those on the gravy train rather than working towards a helpful solution.
If we actually get in a position of ending the Union in the next parliamentary, term surely you’d want Holyrood packed with as many sharp minded Pro-Indy folk of all persuasions to scrutinise the process… or maybe you don’t…
@Andy Ellis
General elections do not automatically grant you the right to UNILATERALY DECLARE INDEPENDENCE. Because that is EXACTLY what you are proposing. There is nothing in the UK constitution (such as it is), the Scotland Act or international law that says it does. Whether it’s declaring UDI under your conditions or mine, it’s still UDI.
@Dan
No, I’m pointing out the reality. A reality confirmed by the experience of RISE in 2016. The theory of vote splitting is, as I said, flawless. The reality is not. The real world is simply not interested in the “cunning plans” of the internet bubble. And is unlikely to become so anytime soon.
@Liz
There is nothing in what you say that I recognise in the real world or think would change with a plethora of narcissistic Pop-Ups. Until you define what actually constitutes “a piss” in your opinion, I’ll go along with the current incumbents definition.
@Me Bungo Pony
Well you’re basing your opinion from long past days. You may have noticed that since the 2016 Scottish Parliament Election there were a couple of significant votes, what were they, oh, losing our EU membership against our expressed will, and a Conservative majority in Westminster we didn’t vote for.
The ground has moved, the demographic makeup of Scottish society has altered, and the electorate have become and continue to be more switched on and receptive to political matters. The YES movement has also developed with hubs set up in many areas.
The Party you suggest we continue to give both votes to got elected on a policy of giving Scotland the opportunity to choose our own future after a material change of circumstance.
If they could #ShowMeTheTofu rather than that withered old carrot dangling on a stick I may be more impressed with those I voted for to represent me.
I remember before the 2019 GE at a rally in George Square Nicola Sturgeon said that “Independence would be front and centre” of the campaign. How manySNP leaflets actually had the word independence in them?
Her speech that day was electioneering for the Yes/indy supporters votes.
She got the votes, more SNP MPs got their noses in the WM trough, and then Sturgeon and her cabal of careerists at the top of the SNP promptly forgot about independence.
A few months ago, on a Saturday, before the lockdown, I met a SNP MSP in the Yes2Kirkcaldy Hub (I am sure the MSP reads this site so he will know ho I am talking about and if he disputes anything there was another person in the conversation). He was also against any move to have another referendum, his preference was parking as we were winning as he put it. He told me he did the number crunching for the party and told me what the numbers were telling him.
He said that most over a certain age (older people) voted no in 2014. Those people were dying off and that the independence Yes vote would go up. That was his idea of winning independence to wait until enough older no voters died.
My only worry about the list party is this
“And we know the Electoral Commission, whose job it is to stamp out exactly this sort of cheating if it were to happen, have so far raised no objections to any of the new pro-indy list parties that have been created,”
The only way I see our list vote being diluted and split is if there is more than one Independence list party. Time will tell, but I hope there is only one come the election next year. I am not talking about the Greens, they can go and do one for me. My 2nd vote will be to a Indy list party.
That’s it, I’m fucking done now. I’m not voting for the SNP ever again. Can anyone advise if you deliberately spoil your first vote, does it spoil your List vote?
If not I’ll be writing Fuck the SNP on my ballot paper.
“Can anyone advise if you deliberately spoil your first vote, does it spoil your List vote?”
No, it doesn’t spoil your list vote.
@Bungo
You quite clearly don’t understand what UDI even is! Becoming independent on the back of a majority vote at plebiscitary elections, which have been specifically identified by those seeking independence as plebiscitary, is a clear mandate. Just as clear as a referendum, and historically and constitutionally a MORE COMMON ROUTE than referendums.
This isn’t a hard concept for the most mediocre students to comprehend, but it appears to be quite beyond your comprehension.
International recognition depends on the appetite of other states to recognise the means by which you gain your independence. They are in general very unlikely to look favourably on UDI except in extreme cases of use of force, oppression, genocide, ethnic cleansing etc. Even then it’s hard as Kosovo shows.
Our Catalan friends found out the hard way that declaring independence without a clear mandate is the road to perdition, but international law (such as it is) recognises the right of peoples to self determination. Where the metropolitan power refuses to accept the rights of peoples to hold referendums (as Madrid does in Catalonia, and as Westminster now does for Scotland unlike in 2012-14) then other alternatives must be sought.
The fact you personally can’t distinguish between plebiscitary elections and UDI doesn’t mean they are the same thing. Your refusal to differentiate the two concepts is positively Trumpian.
It’s not a sin to be ignorant Bungo: it is a sin to be so proud of demonstrating it in public as you appear so happy to do, over and over again.
Well, we’re pretty much fucked if even JC is blind to international law. It is disappointing that she appears to view the world through the lens of British constitutionalism, which lacks legal substance.
Scotland has no hope if our leaders don’t understand the law, and feel themselves bound by British constitutional protocol. The Tories don’t give a dam about due legal process, that’s why they are able to take the piss out of Scotland so easily.
British constitutional legal convention and tradition lacks coherence and compatibility with international law. It is, therefore, inadequate to ensuring the protection of our human rights (see Brexit). Continuing to insist British constitutional convention will recognise Scotland’s legal identity, strikes me as a tad naive.
Full text.
http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MelbULawRw/2002/23.html
It seems like the SNP is fast becoming more like the dictatorship as in Westminster ie cummings/sturgeon. It really is simple the grass roots just needs to give Nicola an ultimatum ahead of next election in Scotland that unless we get a legal document signed forcing them to agree to a indie ref. within 6 months of them being hopefully elected then we withhold our vote. SIMPLES
@CBB
I suspect Joanna Cherry is merely reflecting the orthodox view that alternative means can’t be tried until we have legal certainty on whether a referendum can be held by Holyrood without a S30 order from Westminster. As she says, we may soon have an answer to that courtesy of the current legal case.
I’d have more confidence that Joanna is aligned with those of us who think that if the verdict is that Holyrood cannot hold such referendums, then we need an alternative route, not Wishartesque wish fulfilment and magical thinking that britnats will have to give us what we want because *reasons*.
Of course as Bungo and his ilk amply demonstrate, the Sturgeonistas exhibit an almost Trumpian ability to insist that having no plan is better than a plan, that list only parties reducing the number of yoon MSPs is somehow a bad thing, and that the SNP will somehow grow a pair when Boris says “now is not the time” again despite all the evidence of the past 5 years.
It’s deeply depressing.
Andy Ellis
Desperately depressing. 🙁
Recognition and Global Politics
1 Recognition and the International: Meanings, Limits, Manifestations
https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/9781526101037/9781526101037.00005.xml
As I said, the cunning plan malcontents are DUMB AS F**K.
Me Bungo Pony
If you don’t understand the law, I suggest you stop trying to defend an apparent knowledge vacuum at the top of the party. 😉
Droit et société 2011/2 (n° 78), pages 325 à 337
Legal Good and Recognition: A Study of Axel Honneth’s Social Theory
https://www.cairn.info/revue-droit-et-societe1-2011-2-page-325.htm
I should say Dan has at least put forward an …. “optomistic” way forward for the Pop-Ups. Though, again, even in the unlikely event any get elected …. what good will they be? What will they do to “get independence done”? The malcontents on this thread seem to believe that channelling their anger born of frustration into some “empty vessel” of a party will somehow, magically, make Scotland independent. It’s nuts. They stand far more chance of killing off independence for good than they have of magically getting it by voting for a plethora of Pop-Ups.
I’ve been arguing for independence for decades. I’ve seen support for independence steadily rise on the back of an SNP party that has been, despite what the malcontents on this thread claim, hugely successful in convincing people it matters. It would be heart breaking to have gotten to this point after a lifetime of struggle only to have idiots who refuse to see the folly of their actions destroy it all in a fit of petulance.
@CBB
Rather than posting links to extremely dense academic papers, why don’t you just tell us what is in them that you feel we should know?
Me Bungo Pony
I have no social capital, I’m rusty as hell, there is insufficient space, and the opinion others is changed by helping them discover things for themselves. Not by endlessly telling them what the state of the world is, or punting a dogmatic strategy that lacks moral or legal substance.
Hegel and Respect for Persons
https://philarchive.org/archive/LAIHAR
I’ve spent much of the last year being virtually shouted at on Twitter for standing up for women’s rights and being told my human rights as a woman were a ‘fringe issue’ and that I should just keep voting SNP and keep my fingers crossed that we could sort out women’s rights and freedom of speech at some mythical future point once we have independence. Goes without saying that wasn’t a great sell and I’ve stopped voting SNP and won’t vote for them again until they sort out their misogyny and get rid of the MPs, MSPs and councillors that call women ‘Jeremy Hunts’ or ‘Trash’ etc.
I really hope that now Yessers will start challenging the SNP and, if needed, vote for other (real) independence supporting parties instead of shooting the messenger and blindly supporting a party that couldn’t make their contempt of voters and blah attitude towards independence more clear if they tried.
Oddly enough, if you take the latest polls and change SNP/green to SNP1 & 2 Ross loses his seat – along with 5 other green MSPS..
Which rather begs the question how you can get the buggers to dissolve parliament for an early election before Boris + Dom catch on that they can try and do it permanently from 1 January 🙂
Here’s an attempt at a rough sketch anyway.
British constitutional legal practice is now undeniably divorced from a respect for Natural Law (see Brexit). Subsequently, Brexitanian constitutional practice is unable to respect the principle of universality, so is unable to deliver constitutional justice (see Brexit).
Scotland and England we’re joined in voluntary political union in international law. Brexit re-writes this history. So standing under Westminster’s assumed authority damages the international legal order, and the fabric of international human rights law.
Scotland will continue to get pumped from both ends, if is does not find respect for the jurisprudence of international law.
?ktisat Fakültesi Mecmuas? Cilt: 65, 2015/1 s, 39-78
HUMANITY, FREEDOM AND SOCIO-POLITICAL
COMMUNITY IN HEGEL
https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/234694
I think the SNP have realised that independence means that they will not survive in any meaningful sense. They only get away with nonsense like the Named Person Scheme and the Hate Crime Bill because they have the popular unique selling point of (ostensibly) supporting independence. Once independence is achieved, their chances of significant (or any) power will be gone, and other parties with other policies will fill the void left by unionists. At this point, from the SNP’s point of view, independence is suicide. Bring on the new independence parties as quick as you like – I’ll cancel my SNP membership and join one like a shot!
@CBB
Genuinely impressive but appears to be more philosophy than law. Is it enforceable in a court of law?
Me Bungo Pony
Glad you liked it, I was trying to point to what things look like in a more “just” society. I’m very rusty though, and I’m still trying to re-discover international law myself. So I’m afraid it’s a bit beyond me to place my finger on any specific law or procedure, other than the compelling need to respect the principles of due legal process and equality in law. Oh, and TREATY LAW.
critical horizons, Vol. 16 No. 2, May 2015, 153–169
Social Freedom and Self-Actualization:
‘‘Normative Reconstruction’’ as a Theory
of Justice
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/74372267.pdf
Here’s one bit of international law that folk might be a tad concerned about being separated from, as British constitutionalism accommodates the abusive majoritarianism of (white) English Torydum.
Westminster is no longer bound by the EU and considers itself to be above, and impervious to, international law. The Tories have a pathological opposition towards the principles of universality and public health ethics. So Scotland’s civic society will not be protected by bending to authoritarian English nationalism.
In light of covid-19, the Scottish government has a legal duty to tell Westminster to bolt, we’re not prepared to be further removed from international law and order.
Normative Foundations of Global Health Law
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988830/
@CBB
We won’t be wafted to the sunny uplands of the early days of a better nation on the wings of a 39 page treatise on Hegel.
International law, whilst interesting and perhaps helpful at the margins, is not some deus ex machina which can be expected to make up for the lack of political cojones on the part of the majority of the Scots people.
Joanna Cherry is right: the solution to our problem is in the end political, not legal.
Thought experiment: Let’s assume the UK courts say Holyrood can’t hold a referendum without a S30 Order. I don’t believe for a minute the current SNP has the guts or a coherent plan to actually hold a referendum in that scenario, but if they did it won’t produce international recognition even if they won a convincing Yes. Sturgeon and the gradualists have painted themselves into a corner by tacitly accepting that only a Westminster validated referendum is legitimate. We might wish it was otherwise, but references to the Declaration of Arbroath, Claim of Right and Treaty of Union will cut no ice internationally.
All the international community want to see is a clear answer, in response to a clear proposition, approved by a clear (even if not large) majority. The sole plausible route to that in the short or medium terms is plebiscitary elections. Anyone refusing to contemplate that solution – however much they protest otherwise – is actually advocating for no indyref this decade.
Of course, many of us believe that is the implicit (if not explicit) plan of the current SNP leadership. The closer we come to Holyrood 2021 without Plan B, the further to the right the date of any indyref moves.
We can’t expect the courts to save us. In the end, independence in the Scottish context must be asserted and taken not graciously bestowed.
Ayeright says:
WhoRattledYourCage gets his cage rattled by SC and blows a fuse, retreats to his cage with his tail between his legs LOL’
Eh…no. The man started talking utter nonsense about knowing nothing about the SNP and such, and I did not feel it was worth engaging with him any longer. I did not scream and shout and throw ad hominems at him, I thanked him and walked away.
Now be quiet about something that had nothing to do with you, thanks ever so much. 🙂
‘Julia Gibb says:
17 July, 2020 at 10:26 pm
Ross Greer did excellent work during the Yes campaign 2012-14….’
The wee redhead child babbling on aboot being a Christian and slavering yankee intersectionalist drivel aboot how it’s a ‘privilege’ to be white in a country has historically been white? That Greer you mean, the yankee SJW-ideology import? Clown.
Al-Stuart says:
17 July, 2020 at 11:55 pm
Hi WhoRattledYourCage,
I liked your comment.’
Thanks. I don’t go into net-arguing dross. Do it for a very brief time and move on. This person gave off a funny smell very quickly. Usually I just block the person in question I am arguing with, so I can never see their crap again, but that’s just me. You can’t do that here. I noticed that the Cat person had posted 63 (81 now; talking about the count when I went to bed last night) comments on this thread and just thought, ah the Hell with it. No harm to the person, just not interested.
No plan, no strategy, no passion.
I would have thought these would have been essentials in securing independence.
I watch Blackford in parliament, there is no fire in his belly only pudding. And that is the SNP.
Andy Ellis
Absolutely, Scotland needs to liberate itself politically. All I’m suggesting is that we won’t be able to achieve this if we insist on placing politics above the law. Constitutional and international law are not merely decoration, and they hold more legal weight than British constitutional convention and practice.
England’s majoritarian populism must not be allowed to determine Scotland’s future, as that would be unconstitutional. So a political strategy that acknowledge this, and the legal value of a defensible identity, would help us considerable. Unfortunately, the support for genderwoowoo withing the party, suggest there is little legal knowledge of how to defend a legal identity within the party.
For all those worried about the U.K. govt claiming that pro-Indy parties are gaming the system, there’s a solution. Take the U.K. ‘gold’ standard voting system as the result at holyrood – FPTP. They might not like that result.
Put more explicitly, the SNP needs to find an approach to politics that is compatible with international human rights law.
The European Journal of International Law Vol. 19 no. 4 © EJIL 2008
Human Rights as International
Constitutional Rights
http://ejil.org/pdfs/19/4/1660.pdf
It’s only cheating if it’s an SNP proxy.
It isn’t.
It’s a different Party with a stronger view on independence and also some other matters.
Suggest more different policies.
It’s holding the “SNPs feet to the fire” which is an entirely democratic choice to make.
It’s only cheating if it’s an SNP proxy.
It isn’t.
It’s a different Party with a stronger view on independence and also some other matters.
Suggest more different policies.
It’s holding the “SNPs feet to the fire” which is an entirely democratic choice to make.
.
Michael,
I read your words and the offence you very rightly take to The comment “D*** fae Dreghorn”.
The bitter irony at that phrase was clearly and fairly lost on you.
Yet your reply to instantly ban anyone who uses words that offend you are an excellent way of illustrating the DANGERS in the badly written McWoke HCB and GRA legislation.
Many posters on Stuart’s forum use words I find offensive. Good grief Michael, the site owner, Stuart Campbell’s four letter vocabulary on Twitter was so ripe it would make a Dutch brothel owner blush.
But Michael, do you think it a safe situation where YOU can be jailed or anyone her or elsewhere when the TRIGGER to cause that imprisonment is in the hands of the grotesquely militant McWoke Brigade?
The phrase “D**** fae Dreghorn” was used ONLY in its effort to CAUSE the exact OFFENCE, and abriactive rejoinder which you extol.
It is a VILE phrase. But it well illustrates a vital point….
Is it wise or right to hand the McWoke Lynch Mob their craven wish to be able to cause Police Scotland, the Procurators Fiscal and the Sheriffs to JAIL anyone who upsets them in any way THEY deem offensive?
Michael, thank you for noticing that disgusting phrase. Thank you for calling it out.
Now, perhaps, folk here, especially the supporters of Nicola Sturgeon and the McWoke youth wing of the SNP, will like to forensically analyse the GRA and HCB and explain the wisdom of allowing such politically malicious people as the McWoke lobby the ability to get the likes of Alex Salmond jailed.
Be sure of this: the very day that HCB receives Royal Assent you will see an avalanche of McWoke efforts to get all of their political opponents jailed.
It amazes me that so many people, the majority being intelligent and politically astute, come onto Wings Over Scotland and do NOT “get” the dangers that Stuart Campbell has been cautioning folk about for over a year now.
@Al-Stuart
I said in my original comment that I accepted that robust language is justified in the situation in which we find ourselves. I am no fan of wokism, political correctness or euphemism, and I believe in plain, straightforward language. What I am objecting to is trolling and the hurling of insults and abuse which is irrelevant to the arguments being made. There’s far too much of that on this site, and it’s reached the point where intelligent people with valid arguments, who can communicate and argue without resorting to name-calling and insults, are leaving the site due to the prevalence of moronic and gratuitously offensive posts. Nothing would please the unionists more than for Wings Over Scotland to succumb to a plague of trolls. I’ve no doubt that’s precisely the result they are hoping to bring about. They need to be eradicated in order to prevent that from happening.
@Graeme
I have to apologise to Graeme though I realise he is unlikely to see it all the way down here on the thread.
When he asked me to point to someone on the thread saying the Salmond case would affect the “SNP and independence”, I replied as if he’d asked me to point to people who wanted to damage the SNP. I can only surmise I had a couple of replies to several posters in my head at the time.
My reply should have been along the lines of; “I never claimed anybody had, it was just my reply to someone who asked me about it”. Having said that, there are posts indicating an implied expectation it will damage them.
Sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick Graeme.
Alice said it at the beginning of the comments. I am more and more afraid that I am not going to live long enough to see Scottish independence and it’s depressing me each and every day.
I commented above and ticked the box to be notified of new posts by email but no matter how many times I do so, I never get notified. Could this be the time? Please?
ONE LIST party and ONE ONLY
And to make it effective it should have only one policy ” Scottish Independence ” that way it doesn’t split the YES vote with other matters
So that EXCLUDES the ISP who have nailed their short mast to the anti GRE movement
‘…that means pointing out every threat to it – whether from the enemy’s lines or our own.’
And that damned honesty and clear sightedness is exactly why we need you to always keep doing what you do, not even if – but especially when – you get pelters from your own side. Some yessers were wrong about the damage self ID could bring, I’m glad you spoke out; some yessers are wrong about a new list party and I’m happy you’re speaking out; and in future if it’s something I believe in and you speak to the opposite I hope I’ll be honest enough to appreciate you speaking out and clear sighted enough to see value in what you say and take it on board. There are not enough honest brokers and despite how different you are I think you and Robin McAlpine have that in common.
Reading this strident and informed contribution reminds me of a roller coaster ride. Some exclamations of joy mixed with regular jolts of fear and discomfort. Facing up to hard truths while avoiding negativity and a sense of submission is a difficult line to negotiate. I reckon Stu has done all of us in the independence movement a service, yet again, by drawing together the comments and opinions of many involved in the broad independence cause and highlighting the clear contradictions and empty phrases which in reality amount to utterings of self-interest. The disconnect between the rank and file movement to break the repressive and unequal British Union and the de facto political leadership of that cause has, in my humble opinion, never been greater.
After asking for and securing four clear mandates for a 2nd referendum the SNP leadership are increasingly exposed as the Emperor with no clothes. The tens of thousands who swelled their ranks post-2014 did so in the belief it was the party that would lead us to Independence. That belief is now undermined by prevarication on top of dither, delay and deflection. Stopping Brexit was always a con, and an undemocratic one at that. Unless the Scottish Government is willing to assert its democratic authority and name the date for a referendum regardless of unionist support we will continue to run on a wheel of passion and hope but get nowhere.
Winning that defiant referendum and beginning a 12 month period of separation negotiations would concentrate our minds and allow our positive vision for an independent nation built on progressive principles to contrast with their dark and tired ‘steady as you go’ agenda.
As long as we through determined and engaging campaigning generate a turnout in excess of 50% of the eligible voting population and win at least 60% of that turnout (both objectives very realistic) we have a legal and legitimate vote for independence. A vote that we can seek international recognition for, particularly within Europe.
This or a similar strategy that is counter to the SNP’s whistling in the wind to the distant echoes of Section 30 permission fantasia only become realisable when a significant Indy supporting opposition to the gradualist SNP leadership is elected. That is why the tactical voting push for next May is so important.
First we have to win the principle of the tactic, something which is blindingly obvious to all but the wilfully blind https://sptnkne.ws/CXEU.
And secondly we have to strive to hone the effectiveness of the strategy by seeking an option which is unconditionally pro-independence and not anti-SNP. Promoting 1st vote SNP should remain our mantra. In South Scotland 2 votes SNP should be endorsed. That is where three of the four SNP List seats were won. In all of the other seven regional lists let’s strive to have independence candidates reflecting the rank and file diverse character of the Indy Family but with a sole pursuit of independence mandate perhaps aligned to a firm commitment to resign once the independence vote has been won.
The Greens will never countenance such a unified approach to maximising the YES vote. Their party interests are constantly elevated above the Indy Cause. Their decisions to stand in various seats over recent years where indy supporting candidates would have won but for a split indy vote is clear evidence of their political sectarianism in this regard. However if talks amongst the other pro-indy parties can secure agreements which limit the alternative indy choices on the list then the tactical use of the 2nd vote will produce a win/win outcome. Less useless unionists elected and more pro-indy MSPs, but ones committed to defiance of Westminster not compliance with their continued denial of our democratic right to self-determination. A big alternative Indy group in Holyrood would force the hand of the SNP leaders. Could they risk the consequences of voting down measures and proposals which would put the sovereignty of the people back on top of the agenda where it belongs?
Lets win the principle of the proposal arguments first and then work damn hard to make it as viable a project as possible. We really have nothing to lose but our demoralising inertia.
@Tommy Sheridan
That post is great tactically.
But I will not vote for a party that threatens to undermine civil liberties and to bring in policies that will make life uncomfortable and even dangerous for women.
The SNP can drop this nonsense quite easily. Its a dilemma not of my choosing. I strongly urge other Scots to take the same line and force them to drop it.
I will not bend on civil liberties or the rights of women. If we do, whats the point? Who wants to live wondering if they will cause offense by something they say or write. What sort of country will we have if such things are to be sacrificed on the hope and promise of autonomy?
Hope is the correct word – we have no guarantees what Westminster’s response will be since we have just come from a Brexit outcome that was denied for a full 4 years (and still is) by the very SNP who will have the primary job of turning a majority vote into something like action. The international community response to Scotlands bid for independence will resemble something like Catalonia.
So no – it is much more complicated and far less certain than simply turning a majority vote into independence.
But the SNP dropping their less popular policy ideas IS simple and it IS easy. If enough people draw that line in the sand they will have to drop it.
I will not be party to the erosion of our rights because its always much harder to get them back when they’re gone. As Ian Brotherhood was saying a wee while ago – its time for some personal responsibility.