The world's most-read Scottish politics website

Wings Over Scotland


Into the new world

Posted on November 18, 2021 by

So, in accordance with the wishes of the readership (and despite rather peculiar claims on some sites that all polls in Scotland are now commissioned by Unionists), Wings has its first polling data for you in its present form, relayed without comment.

In association with Panelbase, this month we surveyed 2000 Scottish voters (double the normal sample size) on a couple of subjects. The first question was this:

“Barring unforeseen events, next year Nicola Sturgeon will overtake Alex Salmond as Scotland’s longest-serving First Minister. She took office in November 2014, in a Scotland which was evenly split on the constitution. (Average support for independence in polling was at 50%, compared to the current 48%.)

Which of the following, if any, do you personally regard as her greatest achievement in office?”

The results are below. Click images to enlarge.

ALL RESPONDENTS

2019 UK ELECTION SNP VOTERS

2019 UK ELECTION OTHER VOTERS

ALL VOTERS BY SEX

ALL VOTERS BY AGE

BY 2014 INDYREF VOTE

BY 2016 EU REFERENDUM VOTE

BY COUNTRY OF BIRTH

The data tables are available here.

.

 [EDIT 2.44pm: We now have the 33 write-in answers from people who responded “Something else”.]

“Don’t know” or variants thereof (somewhat missing the point): 12

COVID related: 5

“Her guidance through covid”

“covid information on a daily personal basis”

“Her performance during the COVID crisis”

“Having led the country through the Covid pandemic and shown true leadership throughout.”

“Her leadership during covid was far superior to Prime minister those who died appeared to be important to her not just a number”

Negative comments which are not actually achievements: 5

“She has ruined our country. She should be removed from her position immediately before thing get any worse. I voted yes to Scottish independence in 2014 – because of her new laws, I would now vote no.”

“Nicola Sturgeon has ruined this country.”

“RUINING THE COUNTRY”

“All she cares about is Scottish independence. Nothing else”

“free stuff and general opportunism, leading to long-lasting popularity”

Not being the Conservative Party: 3

“Protecting the people of Scotland from the most damaging UK government policies and improving life quality.”

“keeping the sleaze and corrupt party at arms length in Scotland”

“Putting in place mitigations to help families and lower income households to help protect them from the damaging policies of the Westminster Conservative Government.”

Welfare policies: 3

“Pursuing free dental, bus travel and national social care” 

“Extra child benefit”

“Helping people by topping up benefits”

Things not in fact done by Nicola Sturgeon: 2

“the abolishment on tolls on the bridges and free prescriptions”

“getting powers transferred from Westminster to Holyrood.”

Non-specific praise: 3

“Showing that a Scottish Parliament is good for Scotland and that a Independent Scotland could do so much more”

“Nicola Sturgeon is a world class leader. This is something to be proud of. Whenever she finishes being the First Minister I expect her to have a role on the world stage. The question for Scotland is who comes next and will they have the same gravitas.”

“Stance on climate”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

203 to “Into the new world”

  1. Jason Smoothpiece
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for that hope you are well. Cheered me up seeing WoS popping up. Okay

  2. DebzoHighland
    Ignored
    says:

    Presented without comment….sad face….really missing your comments.

  3. Patsy Millar
    Ignored
    says:

    Just seeing a new post from you fairly brightened a rather dreich day.

  4. aulbea1
    Ignored
    says:

    Always a buzz when Wings posts.

  5. Albarising
    Ignored
    says:

    Get yourself back where you belong… The truth may be uncomfortable for them but your posts are honest and hard hitting…

  6. sydthesnake
    Ignored
    says:

    Barring unforeseen events, next year Nicola Sturgeon should be exiting stage left, or right I’ve no preference, but she needs to go

  7. BuggerlePanda
    Ignored
    says:

    Made my day.

    Back to the political drudge soon hopefully.

  8. marion Collins
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to see Wings pop into my inbox again!

  9. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    Nikki’s achievements are many and varied, so much so that the polling does not do her justice

    – tried to “stop brexit”

    – made a mess of the covid crisis; we now seem to be doing worse than elsewhere, despite almost everyone been vaccinated

    – tirelessly promoted herself as a world leader, on the basis of being a “vagina owner”

    – destroyed internal SNP democracy and moved the party to become some shadow of the US democrats, with Green touches

    – despite the brexit/covid crises, which “put everything on hold” somehow managing to find the time to promote a selection of very strange, bizarre, and unpopular polices, to be forced down peoples throats – so-called “hatecrimes” and the pandering to the delusions of men who think they are women.

    – (likely) being elbows deep in a nasty plot to frame her former mentor

    – “lost” the 600K indyref money

    – protected her pals (no matter what they did), while throwing everyone else under the media outrage bus

    – attended any gathering which had a rainbow flag in it, somewhere, anywhere

    – pissed all over ordinary women, while declaring as a “feminist”, sacrificing their concerns on the altar of “trannyism uber alles”

    – dished out a political beating to her internal party rivals

    these are all significant to someone, I suppose.

  10. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    The highest % of numbers in ANY category for:

    “Progress towards independence/a second referendum”

    BY 2014 INDYREF VOTE (YES voters) 25%

    2019 UK ELECTION SNP VOTERS 23%

    ALL VOTERS BY AGE (16-35) 19%

    After seven years, that’s the max that the people of Scotland/people living in Scotland were prepared to give the yellow coward as her greatest achievement in office in trying to get independence.

    “No significant achievements, things are worse now than when she took over.”

    Does beat it however…!

  11. Ian McCubbin
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for coming back. Seems evidence you provided backs up calls for NS to go. I hope she goes soon.

  12. Alison Brown
    Ignored
    says:

    Lovely to see you post again Rev! If Nicola can bring herself to read this she will be one unhappy bunny!! Not only no progress! The majority across the board saying no improvement and things are worse today than in 2014.

  13. Brotyboy
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to see a post from Wings after so long. Noted that this is the first question so hopefully there will be more to follow. And eventually perhaps with comment/opinion?

  14. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Good to see you back.

    Looking at the data around the first option – ‘no significant achievements, things are worse now’ – then the No voters, the elderly, and the EU Leave voters are significantly unimpressed by ‘Oor Nikla’.

    In terms of gently persuading them to the cause of Indy, then I’d suggest by these measures she’s a complete Dud.

    Anyway, I personally think the achievement she will always be remembered for is putting Free Period Sanitory Products in the Gents Toilets.

    Nikla’s – Sanitoryproducts Now Party. Fannypad’s For Brains.

  15. Eileen Carson
    Ignored
    says:

    Great stuff Stu hope you are well and enjoying life?

  16. Dave M
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m astonished so many people feel that there’s been progress towards anything, never mind a second referendum. What planet are those Yessers/SNP voters living on?????

  17. red sunset
    Ignored
    says:

    Wings in the inbox – smile on face.

    Baby boxes. The only solid achievement. Great that they are, surely this country had a higher expectation?

  18. Georges
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to see you back.
    How can any sane, rational, person believe she protected Scotland from a hard Brexit?
    And for all those who think she’s made progress towards a second referendum, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.
    Alex Salmond’s legacy includes Queensferry Crossing; Borders Railway; completion of the M8, M74, M80; Aberdeen by pass (AWPR); a start to upgrading the A9 to dual carriageway between Perth and Inverness and an Independenc referendum.
    What is Nicola’s legacy? Ferries that are years overdue and at least double the original budget and drug deaths spiralling out of control.

  19. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    Really good to see the rev is still able to give out information that the rest of the Scottish government funded media won’t show , a overwhelming appraisal of Princess Nicolas achievement’s while in office , the sum total of fk all .

    Everyone knows she’s there ,as too what she is for well that’s another question entirely ,

    Our very own Princess Nicola we are totally blessed.

  20. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgeon’s NuSNP…

    A catalogue of failures sufficient to make a WM Tory administration under Boris Johnson look competent.

    Hey Rev! Good to have you back – albeit briefly.

  21. steelewires
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgeon has harmed Scotland by establishing internal totalitarianism in the SNP; harming free speech by the Hate Crimes legislation; forcing a lie on the population with Gender Self-recognition, and the general forcing of Gender ideology on the population – the unscientific lie that biological men can be real women – the sexualising of children and youth by the Relationship and Sexuality curriculum in schools.

    Sadly, were she to demit office or be removed most of the MSPs who could replace her are tarred with the same brush.

  22. steelewires
    Ignored
    says:

    Let’s not forget the achievement of having women’s sanitary products put in men’s toilets so that men who menstruate can use them.

  23. Alice Timmons
    Ignored
    says:

    So, anyone taking bets on how long it’ll be before Comfy Pete and his flying monkeys start the Twitter barrage of “vile Wings” and “it’s all made up”

  24. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    The stats only confirm what most of us already knew. Scotland is going backwards……………at a rate of knots.
    Nothing significant will happen until Sturgeon and the rest of the incompetents are gone. But, as I have said before, who replaces them? The SNP dross that inhabits Westminster is equally as bad and self serving. The cupboard of political talent in Scotland looks pretty bare.

  25. Alison Brown
    Ignored
    says:

    Delighted to see a post from Wings! Won’t make wonderful reading for Nicola!!

  26. ScottieDog
    Ignored
    says:

    Good to hear from wings again.
    Maybe next years poll will be about the leadership of Angus Robertson :’(
    Thanks

  27. Lollysmum
    Ignored
    says:

    Good to see you appearing in my Inbox again. Shame it’s a fleeting visit though.

    Hope you’re keeping well Stuart. You & your scything sarcasm are sadly missed.

  28. Neil Forbes
    Ignored
    says:

    Hope you’ve been getting some rest, Rev. By the way, was that really you popping up on the DonsMad forum for a minute? Your mere presence had that roaster Mason spluttering in anger.

  29. Graeme Hampton
    Ignored
    says:

    Pleasant surprise in my inbox: Missing the commentary but this polling is kind of self explanatory.

  30. LaingB French
    Ignored
    says:

    I would hate to think the United Nations hired her for her professionalism, integrity, transparency and justice of which she has NONE of the above. She has cost the tax payer £26m suing rangers and we lost a QUEENS COUNCIL who had to HUMBLY APOLOGIES and resign his seat for malicious prosecution directed by NS.
    Alex Salmond fiasco how many millions of £ did that cost?
    Mark Hirst?
    cant wait for the sequel BUTTERSTONE SCHOOL,COURT CASE! More millions waisted on ineptitude incompetency and down right lies.
    no change there then?

  31. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Lovely to hear from you – still waiting for a photo in a hot jacket accompanied by various species.

  32. Mark Young
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the poll Stu,
    Glad to see that some SNP folks eyes are opening to the fact they’re now agreeing with you on the fact that you were correct that trans/woke issues would become a bigger issue for SNP than Independence & you were rightly vindicated on that subject.
    Hope your doing ok bud.

  33. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    Nice to see you are still alive and well Stu and quite honestly no one could dispute your decision to pull back from the NOT FRAY when you see the results of that poll , how any sane intelligent person (does NOT include current NUSNP members) could think this deviant and her perverts have done anything good for Scotland and her citizens is beyond belief

    @ Daisy 2.06pm
    ———————————–

    Nikla’s – Sanitoryproducts Now Party. Fannypad’s For Brains.
    ——————————————
    YOU owe me a keyboard , mine now has tea and snot all over it

  34. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    “No significant achievements, things are worse now than when she took over” = 27%

    And as for this mind-blowing statistic which just really does prove there’s nowt as queer as folk: “progress towards independence/ a second referendum” = 12%

    TWELVE FRICKEN PERCENT? Very serious request: Will one of that 12% PLEASE show me exactly where & when she made that “progress”? Please! I’m truly eager to learn.

    That’s as far as i’ve got so far with this polling data. BTW, Rev, i’ve been having a great time going through the archives again, a lot of articles really need updating due to Brexit etc.

    But on a more satisfying note, unbelievable the amount of times your take on things has come to fruition. Always nice to be reminded of *EXACTLY* why they fear & hate you. LOL!

    And folks, those that can should be linking this onto their social media accounts & onto Sturgeon’s etc. I’d love to put it onto Comfy Feet Pishfarts but like many others i’m blocked. 🙂

  35. Geoff Huijer
    Ignored
    says:

    “All she cares about is Scottish independence. Nothing else”

    Whit? This person has obviously not been paying attention or maybe they just read The National.

  36. Dave R
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to hear from you again even though there’s no incisive commentary attached which is much missed. Have followed Talking Up Scotland blog since your withdrawal but although he is interesting and worth watching and usually OK he seems like many indy folk to have a blind spot for oor Nicola!

  37. P
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to see a WoS post – thank you
    Disappointing to see the baby box didn’t do better!
    At less than 10%, that’s all she’s got.
    And yes, things are much worse with her leading.

  38. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    Excellent use of funds. Statistical significance is unquestionable. Although because of the ‘Recency Effect’ the positive returns could be inflated. Try it again a couple of years after the FM has left office. Counters the World Leading stuff we keep hearing at FMQs. Great work Stu, contributors on this site have not been unfair to the FM. Pete Wishart take note.

  39. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    How long before her anti-polling mantra starts spewing forth again?

    Another quirk of hers – ‘don’t pay any attention to polls’ (unless they’re inflating ones ego).

  40. Westviews
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to see you back. I just wish it was for good. That’s not a great endorsement of her record. It’s not surprising that even the diehards in the SNP are doubting her now. The membership must have taken more of a hit by now. The sooner she’s gone, the better and I’m just hoping that Robertson isn’t parachuted into her position. Wouldn’t trust him any more than I trust her.

  41. Ken
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh dear. Shows the gulf between the hype of the SNP cheerleaders for the cult of Sturgeon (blessed be her/his/it’s/ze/ name) and the reality of what people actually think.

    PS. Also glad to see you’re not dead, killed by bears.

  42. TaxiforFM
    Ignored
    says:

    That middle comment on non specific praise came from a pc in Bute House.

  43. Kcor
    Ignored
    says:

    Progress towards removing the ‘i’ word from the SNP: 99% success

  44. Calum
    Ignored
    says:

    In hoping we’ll get some analysis / comment at some point?

  45. DMT
    Ignored
    says:

    Thank you for the polling. I always love Scotland specific polling and trackers. There is never enough Scottish politics specific content with regularity. Hope to see more polling, especially on public attitudes to GRA in the future!

  46. Calum
    Ignored
    says:

    *I’m

  47. Jan Cowan
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to know the slithery ones will be shaking in their slippers once more.

  48. Never vote for Anne McLaughlin
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to see a wings email. Very interesting polling results. I think most alert folk now know we won’t achieve independence with queen Nicola. She is just a clever spokesperson with a big ego but has done nothing meaningful to advance independence. Hopefully alert folk can manage to convince you’re more sensible folk who will listen to what’s going on. Sadly the queen Nicola sycophants will always support her regardless of no Indy 2. They are without doubt the most embarrassing group of people ever to pop up in Scotland. They idolise queen Nicola and think she can do no wrong despite Sturgeon being in charge of a Scotland with one of the worst COVID death records in the world! The worst drug deaths in Europe and some of the worst poverty anywhere on the planet. Behind the flashy look Sturgeon likes to portray is an extremely dreadful politician who has been harmful for Scotland ???????. Thanks for this informative poll Stu ?

  49. Chris
    Ignored
    says:

    Glad my monthly DD to WoS is still active! Thanks for keeping us up to date on public sentiment.

  50. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ DMT

    Re. More polling.
    In case you missed them, Scot Goes Pop has been carrying out recent polling on the subject of GRA and Self ID.

    His various blogs can be accessed directly, or through the following linked site which is worth bookingmarking.

    https://www.voices.scot/

  51. John Moss
    Ignored
    says:

    Well, nice to see a new post and the results of an interesting survey.

    Let’s see what the new year brings. I can’t imagine that things are going to go Nicola Sturgeon’s way. But sometimes, people and events can surprise you.

    I for one am hopeful.

  52. Effigy
    Ignored
    says:

    It was like opening the curtains to see bright sunshine seeing a new Wings Post!

    Keep well Rev

  53. Turnbuldrier
    Ignored
    says:

    That was a lovely notification to get.. hope your doing well Stu.

    As for the poll.. progressing indy 12%.. I guess these folk aren’t paying attention.

  54. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    I was thinking `didn`t She/Her get the bridge built`,

    but turns out that it was Alex Salmond that got the bridge built,

    She/Her was just popped up at the end for the selfie with Lizzie.

  55. shug
    Ignored
    says:

    when will she exit the scene??

    any guesses anyone

  56. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Shug 8:41pm
    It has to come from within. By that I mean the SNP and not the Independence movement. Only when SNP seats are threatened will they act. Anybody like to point out any occasion when either an SNP MSP or SNP MP has voted against the party line?. Now we are talking about a heterogeneous electorate. Rural, urban and special interest etc. Unbelievable. So many police investigations and Inquiries of various forms. I vote for people that are capable of Independent thought. Sadly I can’t see anybody of that ilk. But she will go, they all do on the end.
    Reason to be cheerful.

  57. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dan 18 November, 2021 at 6:09 pm

    This is no skin off my nose but because you do a lot of good stuff reminding folk of the importance of archiving links, and i’ve not seen anyone else say to you, i thought i would.

    Scot Goes Pop is no friend of WOS. Can’t remember the finer details but if memory serves me correctly he even blocked Rev. Think it was something to do with ‘Scot Goes Pop’ polling?

    Anyway, just giving you the heads up.

  58. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Stoker

    Aye, I’m aware they have their differences, but at least some are finely catching up and taking onboard what Stu highlighted years back. And if the newly enlightened can furnish us with polling evidence that shows the policies being pushed by the Scottish Government Administrators of Devolved Powers are not supported by a majority of the electorate then that is surely a useful thing to have.

    If we are not to cross-link to any site that is not in total alignment with this site, then that will severely restrict information sharing, and as we are up against an opposition that has far more reach and ability to influence folk, you’d have to be a fucking moron to limit the available tools we have to hand.
    But then again, so many of our supposed “Pro-Indy” politicians and activists still can’t be arsed or have the Party discipline to archive links to unionist papers, so in the scheme of things I reckon my occasional links to different sources ain’t that bad…

  59. craig sheridan
    Ignored
    says:

    The 12% of people stating ‘progress towards independence/second referendum’ as Nicola Sturgeon’s greatest achievement are radio rental. I would would hate to be such an embarrassing sycophant that I lie. There is no progress. Absolutely none. In fact, the opposite is true. We have a rudderless and splintered movement with no plans on how to achieve independence. We badly need leadership.

  60. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Craig Sheridan 10:27pm
    Well I am glad I am part of the 55+ group. Only 8% say progressing Independence, which is where everybody should be. 50% say worse or indifferent betterment, of course we have the privilege of comparing current performance to what went before. Salmond gave us a competent performance. Even the Scottish Office was better than the current performance. And that is saying something. But we have to endure as always. Check the 18% covid poll after the public inquiry. Perception over reality.

  61. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dan re, ‘
    Dan says:
    18 November, 2021 at 10:36 pm

    Lesley Evans replacement lined up.

    https://twitter.com/ginadavidsonlbc/

    Well spotted Dan, and very interesting.

    Here is what is going to happen/already afoot, according to my crystal ball….

    The British Establishment is going to take the foot off the accelerator re Self ID Gender stuff, the Gender Critical people have won a couple of rounds (a good start, but not enough in my opinion) but far more worryingly for the Brits, is that while they have tranquilised the Yes Movement, the Women Won’t Wheesht movement has allowed folk to keep their hand in… and across all political boundaries ( a serious worry for them, because it exposes ‘soft no’s to Yes supporters in a collaborative manner). From a Brit Nat point of view, that now needs to be nipped in the bud as a matter of urgency.

    Secondly, they will/already have, ensured that the DPW offices that deal with claims in areas where they have target MP’s, eg Joanna Cherry, Neale Heanvey… will now be operating the most inefficent service for the public. It will be a like a retirement home for the most useless within the DWP, and there will be a boss in place in those offices, ensuring they are protected.
    The idea being to overload/overwhelm those MP’s with claimants in need, so they cannot manage and get demoralised.

    It’s important they know this, because if they can firefight sufficiently, it’s actually a potential voting gift. Every one of those claimants that the MP’s assist is worth 2 – 6 votes, if they do a good job.

    And lastly, the recent very co-ordinated pile on on Joanna Cherry makes no sense, other than if Nikla goes soon, a leadership contest at present is likely to result in JC becoming leader… and Angus Robertson is absolutely the Brit Nats next heir apparant to Nikla.

    Right just now, the Brit Nats number one priority is about how to neutralise their Joanna Cherry problem.

    If they push her out completely, and she stands as an Independent, she is likely to keep her seat, in that ‘neutral’ position she would be ideal to unify the indy split between Alba and SNP… and her presence at this level would show up Angus on a daily basis.

    Incidentally, I don’t think, (although things can change) I don’t think she should join Alba, her constituency is traditionally Conservative, I think it would almost guarantee her being voted out if she joined Alba – which is a bugger because she would be a great asset. But thems the way the cards are falling at the moment… as far as I can tell.

    One last thought, a problem for the Brit Nats, is JC is now internationally recognised through her work on the illegal Prorogation and her GC work, she’s earned some formidible allies in England, and they will not want to lose her. Yet another reason why they will be looking to mothball the self ID Gender stuff as much as possible for now.

    I realise for a lot of people it’s very much ‘all about Indy’ and the self ID gender stuff is a distant second, if at all. That is naive. We do not have that luxury. The Yes movement needs to maximise it as an opportunity as much as possible – even if it means trimming/tailoring the message somewhat.

  62. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker 11:31pm
    Well you are misrepresenting me. I have have always thought opposition to self ID etc was fundamental to the Indy cause. It’s came from nowhere and was never part of the original premise of Indy. And I am going back decades. But I am happy to be corrected if you have evidence of this self ID prior to Nicola Sturgeon?.

  63. Kenny
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for that very welcome contribution, it’s always a form of relief during these times.
    Unfortunately the Cult won’t be interested in Polls, especially not from you, Stuart, it won’t offer any kind of epiphany for them. Nonetheless, I see the poll as a progress – slow-moving, sure – but definite progress and undoubted signs of change.

    In the meantime, we’ll keep spreading the word and exposing the fraud, on Twit and elsewhere.
    Another hero will join us again: Craig Murray will soon be free and, after he gains some strength – and the love from his persecuted family – I can’t see him being cowed by the crooks.

    Thanks again. Hope you’re well.

  64. Papko
    Ignored
    says:

    Its obvious to me Nicola Sturgeon does not want another referendum,becuase the prospects of winning it are too risky and the downside too great.
    So she must spin and procrastinate at the same time shake the banner and bang the table, hoping that ardor for Independence will deflate over time.
    Its very frustrating for her and the few hundred “representatives” in the party, that the great lifestyle they enjoy is some way predicated on 1.2 million Scots wanting Independence, and they are all hoping they can bring the expectations down gently, with a little bump perhaps but not severe enough to lose their sinecures in 2026

  65. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    It is generally understood that polls (to a large extent) measure propaganda and its effectiveness rather than public opinion per se. Naturally, then, it follows; the more propaganda a population is subjected to, the more skewed public opinion will be.

    I have to wonder what value polls have in Scotland today when, as revealed here, women and young people have such a favourable opinion of Sturgeon’s SNP and its policies. Those two groups in particular are distinct losers as far as Government action detrimental to their specific interests are concerned (GRA tramples all over women’s rights and failure to progress independence must surely impact on the young more than anyone else).

    In 2014 we were targeted by “project fear” but we had protection in the form of Salmond and the SNP, Wings, and others back then. The protection they provided in the form of alternative views and rebuttals made all the difference, taking support for independence from about 27% to 45% in the space of a few months.

    The grim reality that we don’t have any real protection or alternative perspectives is reflected in these polls.

    Sturgeon’s SNP has essentially joined forces with the British State and between them they’ve been able to spin all sorts of stories without interruption — on things like GRA, the plot against Salmond, independence, the pandemic, and much else — to the extent that polling today in Scotland is essentially a depressing measure of how much effort they put into bludgeoning us.

    They’ve moved on to foreign policy and international relations too and you can bet you’d see that in the polls if you looked, with public opinion in Scotland suddenly more positive towards Israel, nuclear deterrence, and NATO, and more negative towards Russia, etc.

    Maybe the money would be better spent on say substack where you can pay people like Dominic Cummings to answer specific questions (and I’d bet he could reveal a thing or two about the SNP’s position on stuff like “herd immunity”) or on old fashioned marketing.

  66. Effigy
    Ignored
    says:

    Didn’t Fiona millionaire unionist Bruce play a blinder
    on Question Time last night.
    A whole barrowload of broken Tory Promises rhymed off
    by the SNP panelist, especially the latest ghost train not
    heading anywhere near Leeds and in jumps Fiona-
    SNP promised to Clyde Ships and didn’t deliver?

    That project was a disaster but at least it’s intention was sound
    I’m trying to save jobs and the industry the Clyde is renowned for.

    He should have pointed this out and it wasn’t done to lie their way
    though to an election victory.

    Maybe one day one of them will rumble the Bruce?

  67. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Daisy Walker says:
    18 November, 2021 at 11:31 pm

    …And lastly, the recent very co-ordinated pile on on Joanna Cherry makes no sense, other than if Nikla goes soon, a leadership contest at present is likely to result in JC becoming leader… and Angus Robertson is absolutely the Brit Nats next heir apparant to Nikla.

    If anybody is in any doubt about the degree to which Joanna Cherry got under the skin of Westminster…

    https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1460365963300323335

    They are trying to reverse that precedent set whereby the PM can be challenged and defeated regarding the prorogation of Parliament. Joanna Cherry gave Scotland an important beachhead where a Scots Law doctrine held sway over English / Westminster law.

    But like any beach head, bridge head, or air head, it is just a military manoeuvre which pierces the enemy defences and takes the initiative. But if you don’t rush in support and reinforcement to exploit the breakthrough, the enemy will recover, regroup, and isolate the salient and crush it.

    Joanna Cherry had the UK Establishment on the run, twice, yet NOTHING was done to exploit the advantage, and be in no doubt, it was a Constitutional advantage, with Scots Law doctrines at the heart of it.

    I worry about Joanna Cherry’s position. Truth be known, I think Rev Stu suffers for it too. But when a nasty and vicious pack is after you, three of them can feel like fifty, whereas fifty friends and allies can feel like three. It’s not baseless fear either, because the attackers have the initiative to instigate an attack on you, where your support feels sluggish and ineffective in defending you. That’s a pernicious stress, and it wears people down.

    “ The Yes movement needs to maximise it as an opportunity as much as possible – even if it means trimming/tailoring the message somewhat…”

    It’s a very rare occurrence Daisy Walker, but for once I disagree with you. Nobody invited the Transgender Taliban to ride piggyback on the electoral popularity of Scottish Independence. They infiltrated our YES Campaign because it promised them power and electoral mandates which their delusional fantasies would NEVER have secured on their own. Our YES movement has been taken over by a parasitic organism that has grown fat gorging itself on our strengths, and when it is done with us, all that will be left is the husk of what once was.

    It will be a gross strategic error to entertain a place for these poisonous individuals anywhere in future Independence Campaigns, or they will do to YES and ALBA what they have done to the SNP.

    It is my firm conviction they have actually destroyed the IndyRef2 Option for the foreseeable future. Not only the inanely stupid cul-de-sac of Sturgeon’s Section 30 nonsense, but actually, the prospect of winning it, when Independence is forced to carry the dead weight of Transgender Extremism and is thoroughly poisoned by association.

    I’d walk over hot coals to follow the Pantone 300 Saltires and YES logo’s of 2014. But I cannot even look at the corrupted SNP “YES” multicoloured logo without seeing the same corruption of something very pure and beautiful which was very dear to me. Nobody asked them to do it.

    It is my equally firm conviction that ALBA, and a strategy very much in line with that described by the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group, is now the ONLY way that Scotland can save itself from the catastrophic failures and incompetence of Sturgeon’s regime.

    I know a lot of people fought very hard to get Holyrood, and for a time, Holyrood was the Great Hope in the Scottish Independence story. Many saw it as being half way there. I didn’t. Instead I saw people who wanted a thing too much, and it made them, I hate to say it, gullible.

    Holyrood could have been that half way house… I repeat reference to my Red/White/Raspberry Ripple sovereignty argument, but Holyrood’s cowardly acquiescence to Scotland’s wholly unlawful and unconstitutional colonial subjugation that was Brexit, has bleached Holyrood of all red pigment and revealed it as Westminster Institution which swears fealty to Westminster. Holyrood is lying when it claims to respect the Constitutional Sovereignty of the Scottish People.

    Holyrood is dead to me. It is not the Government of Scotland. Scotland has no Government.

    Scotland will remain without a Government until it creates the Grand Assembly Institution which takes actual command of Scotland’s inalienable Sovereignty and uses that Constitutional position to destroy the Treaty of Union and secure International Recognition, so that Scotland can inhale it’s first breath of oxygen in over 314 years.

  68. Thistle's Bristles
    Ignored
    says:

    Great to see another post from you, Rev!
    A cheering sight in my inbox.

    Interesting figures (yes, I read all of them!).

    My takeaway view? As others have already put it, above..

    (Confused 2:02, Graf Midgehunter 2:02, Brotyboy 2:05, Eileen 2:10, Dave M 2:11, red sunset 2:12, and Georges 2:18).

    I’ll be interested in further data.. and now looking out for it!
    Thank you.. & Warm wishes, as ever.

  69. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @tannadiceboy, re ‘misrepresenting me’.

    Dear tannadice, I made my comment without the slightest thought or knowledge of your stance on the subject. Sorry if that offends, it is not intended to.

    Thinking some more about the Brit Nat’s need to get Joanna Cherry out of the SNP prior to a Leadership contest.

    What are their options?

    Keep Nikla in place – not good, she’s a spent force now, and likely to get stroppy.

    (The purpose of the SNP now is to mop up the YES vote, with a leader who will do hee haw to progress it…. just like with labour before, and like labour before, to become increasingly lacking in ability or integrity… a slow and managed electorial decline.)

    So, options.

    Smear Joanna like they did Alex. Unlikely.

    Hound her out, with relentless bullying. This is already being tried, but is backfiring. The optics are really bad, to the point of rallying people to her cause, and the more they try, the more the GRSelf Id Madness is exposed to daylight.

    Incite one of the GR nutters to do her physical harm.

    I’m sorry to be the messenger of doom folks, but I have no doubt the Brit Nats will be game planning all of the above scenarios, and the last one will definitely be on the cards.

    The Yes movement let down Alex. It allowed the Brit Nats to destroy his reputation.

    If physical harm comes to Joanna, it will allow Angus and Alyn to step up to the plate, and play at being ‘statesmen’.

    We need to turn the tables on that, and do so now. And I’m not sure exactly how, although the #I stand with Joanna is a good start.

    I suspect publicising the names of all the SNP MP’s and MSP’s who encourage the pile on, or who remain silent about it – a sort of name and shame policy – might be a start.

    What are folks thoughts.

  70. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @Effigy,

    how did Jordan Peterson come across on QT,

    whether you agree or disagree with his views ,they are honest held views not just virtue signalling for an audience.

  71. Alastair Bryan
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgeon has dragged down the independence moment, her cabal needs to be cleansed out of the SNP. It will be good to see Sturgeon go sooner rather than later.The damage she has done to Patriots Singh,Murray and Salmond is unforgivable she a worse ("Tractor" - Ed) to Scotland than even Brown.
    Good to see wings back, Scotland needs you now more than ever.

  72. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    On the matter of the First Minister and her appointees ‘significant achievements’ in office:

    https://www.barrheadboy.com/a-statement-from-the-indian-council-of-scotland/

  73. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Breeks at 8.56: “Scotland has no government..”. I agree with that and with the rest of your thinking. I too loathe the multi-coloured Yes logo and can’t bear to look at it. Nor at NS. What a shambles and wreck they have made of everything.

    @ Daisy Walker: “name and shame SNP MP/MSPs who encouraged the pile on [against Joanna Cherry]..”. I have started to try to stimulate a fightback by the Silent MSPs by emailing Kate Forbes on a range of issues. She isn’t my MSP but I don’t see why one shouldn’t tell any MSP our opinions. She is said to have some moral standards so her conscience might be prickable. If she got enough emails from all over Scotland then surely the message will get through?

  74. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Breeks re, ‘It will be a gross strategic error to entertain a place for these poisonous individuals anywhere in future Independence Campaigns, or they will do to YES and ALBA what they have done to the SNP.’

    Breeks, I am guilty of not putting my point across in a clear manner. I would not touch the Transgender Taliban with a barge pole. They are utterly poisonous, as you correctly point out, and most assuredly should not be allowed anywhere near the reins of power.

    The point I was trying to make, in my clumsy way, is there are Indy supporters urging that the yes movement distances itself from the campaigners who are resisting Self ID.

    I think this is absolutely what the Brit Nats would want, and I think it would be surrendering an incredibly useful tool for us.

    There is only one single party in the whole of the UK who have a clear and unambiguous policy re Self ID/womens rights – and that is Alba.

    Those women’s rights and children safeguarding issues, are rallying people from across every political spectrum and every household to a single cause.

    Indy supporters and Tory No voters are standing side by side, with common cause.

    And that is how you convert soft no voters to Yes. Those people will have conversations, they will exchange information, they will disclose details of Alex Salmond’s trial, they will educate on Scotlands real economic potential. That’s a break through we won’t get anywhere else.

    To look at it from another angle. Neo Conservative policy aligns with tory policy – often. And where they align, they collaborate.

    We see this with the arms industry, with banking, and with big pharma – GRSelf ID. Can they and will they infiltrate whole political parties/governments to pursue this. Yes they will, and the evidence for that is Malta.

    I’m asking the Yes movement to be just as smart, and utilise a mutual and common interest in the pursuit of Indy.

    Likewises, during Indyref1, its aftermath and Brexit – there was no let up in the clownfest. It was entertaining. Every day there was a Murphy or a Kezia incident. It fed the Indy movement. I said then that smarter heads would take charge and start to dry that up.

    And that is what happened.

    The major/only flow of ‘events/incidents’ now is with the Gender movement, and it is keeping folk like us active.

    That is why it is important for us, and it is also why the Brit Nats will start to de-escalate it. Expect some decent, (and boring) Conservative politics on the subject in the near future. They will paint themselves as the adults in the room.

  75. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks at 8:56 am

    “It is my equally firm conviction that ALBA, and a strategy very much in line with that described by the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group, is now the ONLY way that Scotland can save itself from the catastrophic failures and incompetence of Sturgeon’s regime.”

    Yes, this is the only practical option, Breeks. ALBA might also seek to explain to Scots that independence is decolonisation, Scotland having been sold by its mankit elites into slavery in 1707, and ruthlessly exploited through indentured servitude ever since – as the price of ‘The Equivalent’.

  76. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Daisy Walker says:
    19 November, 2021 at 10:18 am

    The point I was trying to make, in my clumsy way, is there are Indy supporters urging that the yes movement distances itself from the campaigners who are resisting Self ID.

    I think this is absolutely what the Brit Nats would want, and I think it would be surrendering an incredibly useful tool for us.

    I hear what you’re saying Daisy, present the Unionist Establishment with a divided YES Community and they will indeed exploit it to the max, particularly since it boasts Sturgeon at it’s epicentre. If I was a Unionist, that’s exactly what I would do.

    But my point is, both the SNP and Unionists are content to go through the motions of a 2014 style IndyRef, with the Unionists now much better placed to make life awkward for YES through the toxicity of Transgender and self ID. Step back, take in the whole panorama, and they are already shutting down every option except the option that leads to Section 30, and maybe a Referendum provided Westminster is calling the tune and the BBC has a monopoly on broadcasting.

    My position is that we don’t succumb to that contrived and artificial process, especially given what some of us always knew, (but now many more have learned), that Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty is NOT some archaic irrelevance, but is actually pivotal. If Holyrood doesn’t respect that, then Holyrood is skating on wafer thin ice.

    It is my firm conviction that Scotland’s UK controlled Referendum process and the whole manipulated narrative, is deeply compromised and dysfunctional, and I believe it is time for Scotland’s Constitutional advocates to take command of the process, and demote the function of a compromised referendum process to that of a ratification plebiscite.

    I accept that too many frogs would find that water already much too hot to jump into, but that’s why using a UK General Election could be the way forward, with a simple 50%+1 in the vote being all that’s required.

    To a certain extent, I think that strategy might negate second home owners purloining the right to vote, but the reason I only think that to an extent, is that the franchise in a UK General Election is not the same franchise you would expect to see by purely Constitutional criteria. We’d be giving a lot of people in Scotland the right to a vote which they don’t constitutionally qualify to be given…

    But, (and I know this gets very complicated), but while the voting franchise in a UK General Election might not be strictly correct, I think the process of turning the UK General Election into a Constitutional Plebiscite is inspired, and furthermore, making the General Election serve that purpose would come about entirely through Scotland’s Sovereign Constitutional rights. So, even the flawed result came through complete with a few unconstitutional warts, it would still get us over the Independence line.

    I don’t give a shit about Holyrood or Council Elections.… ALBA and the SSRG need to be ready and have all the groundwork down to seize the day whenever the next UK General Election occurs. … An that could be a snap Election we are not yet ready for.

    Henceforth, EVERY UK Election must be a Plebiscite on Independence, and that belief must run through all of us like Brighton Rock. It doesn’t, yet, but that’s where I think the game now lies.

    In my humble opinion, Holyrood, and indeed the nSNP have played themselves out of contention, and that saves us the distraction of impeaching their ahem, “Government”.

  77. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks.
    As most often not I tend to hold you in esteem when it comes to alternative avenues as routes to independence and Scottish sovereignty.

    And yet I see a deep divided contrast in the way WE the Scottish people recognise our sovereignty and get mad at the snp messing around within the politics,

    Yet this bring my attention to the weaponisation of covid by not only th BT gov, but openly by the SNP.

    We cannot claim that the Scots hold their sovereignty even under uk health overruling and having control of the health act, mandatory vaccines and mandatory passports in Scotland segregating society into a two tier population.

    If you read the Scotland act, I think it is article 8 that states the human right to a home family and access to each other.
    In Scotland such things as mandatory vaccines and mandatory Passports similar to how Germany laid its plans to begin segregating the people of Germany in a two tier society,
    Can be seen as contentious for the right to home and family against imposed vaccines or lockdowns, sovereignty of people, never mind Scotland’s written sovereignty .

    They simple are not compatible. In rights nor in law here in Scotland.

    How can we claim we are sovereign then immediately give our sovereignty to the snp under rules that break the devolution Scotland Act. Plus a rather large white elephant in room when it comes to the treaty of the union accuracie.

    For it to be law of the British government it has to be approved in the 1707 treaty of the union,
    For instance it does not mention that it may lock up Scottish people under a new health act, by using the separate Scots law with was to be retained to Scotland,
    It also does not state that a sub branch of Westminster’s devolved government may change Scots law,
    Which held your sovereignty and the Scots human privacy rights.
    Anything that is not, is in fact not legal,

  78. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    Clarification.

    Anything not stipulated in the treaty of the union Acts of 1707 or as changing the Acts breaks the treaty,

    Which includes locking up Scottish people and restrictions on their movement is not legal law according to that treaty,
    Nor the destruction on privacy rights to be entangled with a later health act passed by Westminster for Scottish people which has it own law of 1707 and prior.

    This is not compatible with sovereignty.

  79. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks,

    I am fully supportive of plebiscite elections for Indy, in fact I now see it as the only method by which we might succeed.

    It is indeed de-colonisation.

    With regards local elections – they provide Alba with a legitimate reason to knock on doors and speak to people. Doing so in a cold calling type scenario is not very successful.

    Hopefully Alba – at every level – will be looking to do this, with a view to setting the foundations of a plebiscite GE election. That’s my stall set out on the issue at any rate.

  80. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    I speculated earlier how the Brit Nats would deal with the Cherry problem.

    Thinking some more about it, and given their track record, one method they might well deploy is to let her contend for the SNP Leadership role and then gerrymander the results.

    Her position within the SNP then would become severely weakened, as would her option to decant to Alba. If she then left the SNP, and stood for her seat as an Independent, I suspect that would also be a damaged option for her.

    All things considered, this would be a very good, almost risk free option for the Brit Nats.

  81. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Daisy Walker at 12.13: I was about to say that one reason for the current pile-on against Joanna Cherry could be that she HAS applied to be leader [as I and many others no doubt have asked her to do].

    Or someone with her backing has done so.

    It is a happy thought – but I think we would have heard if there was an application in.

  82. Robert McAllan
    Ignored
    says:

    sarah at10:15am, name and shame is the way to go, however you will find that Kate Forbes does NOT do shame. She has NOT made any public denunciation of the threats and harassment experienced by Joanna Cherry. It is common knowledge within SNP circles that Forbes has high ambitions to be a future First Minister at Holyrood and her strongly held presbyterian principles mean as nothing to the position she covets.

    Ian Blackford is another who flaunts his Free Presbyterian credentials and in his role at Westminster has contributed to the appalling treatment experienced by Ms Cherry at the hands and instigation of the SNP HIERARCHY. Forbes and Blackford are but two of the failures elected to office on a platform of deceit. Scotland must move forward with ALBA leading the political discourse.

  83. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert McAllan: there is a glimmer of hope re Kate Forbes – on 5th November Joanna tweeted a photo of Kate and herself at a COP26 event with the words “Delighted to hear Kate…. Women are stronger when we stick together.”

    I took encouragement from that.

  84. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone still under the Illusion that we the voting public have any say in this political pantomime that is going on in every country worldwide.

    We vote them in and they do as much to piss off annoy and generally do what they want fk you mugs you voted for us so now piss off

    This SNP Government has acquired emergency powers that continue until September next year with a provision of being extended without further notice or any further vote in short endless emergency measures that totally remove your rights as a citizen

    While everyone was engaged elsewhere they sought approval from the home office to introduce a whole new set of police powers that effectively deemed the whole Holyrood estate our parliament to be under special measures different from the rest of the country

    Sturgeon and her inner circle are now effectively a law unto themselves Juries and jury trials are under severe threat, the excuse being to clear a backlog of cases the rule of law is now what her and her gang of misfits and bought and paid for performers say it is .

  85. J Galt
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert McAllan @12.53

    “Wee Free” Hypocrites?

    Who’d have thought!

  86. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Re my previous comment at 1:29 – spelling correction:

    Posting links to his site, not ‘side’ (rolls eyes).

  87. Tom
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC Woman’s Hour interview with the Chief Exec of Stonewall; well worth hearing ..

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0011lrs

  88. James
    Ignored
    says:

    If you know anyone in the SNP show them this
    courtesy of Yours For Scotland

    https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/09/07/the-takeover-plot-exposed/

  89. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    A little tit bit while you were sleeping

    Sainsbury are quietly introducing QR code VAX Pass readers in their supermarkets

    Don’t say you weren’t warned

    Gibraltar has cancelled Christmas due to a surge in infections

    Gibraltar has a 100% vacation record , that’s every single person being jabbed this is not as President Biden says a pandemic of the un vaccinated it’s the polar opposite.

    This is not and never has been about peoples health 0.8 % mortality rate less than the Flu ! This you will not hear from our compliant MSM this is being suppressed everywhere

  90. robbo
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan says:
    19 November, 2021 at 1:56 pm
    https://twitter.com/PhantomPower14/status/1461661124080844806

    What is it that Phantom power said that has got this tumshie freaked out along with the other zoomers?
    I can’t see what it is.

  91. Stoker
    Ignored
    says:

    Continuing with the theme of polling – here’s an interesting situation revealed on WOS 10 years ago resulting from the then ‘Scottish Social Attitudes Survey’:

    “The most startling of these is the realisation of how much the phrasing of the question matters. For example, when ScotCen (the Scottish Centre for Social Research, authors of the poll) asked people directly whether they supported independence, 32% answered yes (itself a dramatic rise from the previous year’s figure of 23%), with 49% preferring “devo max” (generally interpreted as all powers except defence and foreign affairs residing with Holyrood), 9% backing the status quo and 6% calling for a return to complete Westminster rule with no Scottish Parliament at all.”

    “But when the same respondents were asked which decisions about Scotland should be made by the Scottish Parliament, the most popular answer was “all of them”, at 43%, with the devo max position favoured by 29%, the status quo (where Westminster also retains control of tax and welfare) the choice of 21%, and the abolition of Holyrood and the reversal of all devolution to date preferred by 5%.”

    “These are fairly extraordinary findings. The name of the scenario where the Scottish Parliament makes all decisions about Scotland, including defence, foreign affairs, taxation and welfare is, of course, “independence”. Try as we might we can’t think of the powers which might still be reserved to Westminster under the terms set out by the poll question. Simply by phrasing the question differently, removing the emotive word from the equation, support for independence has leapt 11 percentage points and overtaken devo-max to become the most popular choice.”

    https://wingsoverscotland.com/spinning-around/

  92. Ebok
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert McAllan says:
    19 November, 2021 at 12:53 pm

    ‘her strongly held presbyterian principles’
    ‘flaunts his Free Presbyterian credentials’

    Had to indulge in a wry smile over this.

    There have been a number of topics discussed on WoS where one side has been accused of being ‘flat earthers’ or ‘science deniers’ or other impolite labels.
    Yet we are led to believe – not by you Robert – that being a member or practitioner of one of the 4.000 or so religions of the world puts one on a higher plane, though it is surely the finest example of ‘flat earther’ or ‘science denier’ available?

    It never ceases to amaze me that ostensibly intelligent people buy into this, despite the available evidence. If people wish to believe, so be it, but it is unquestionably the greatest con sold to mankind in history, and a ball and chain for proles.
    Cleverly adapted to NSNP membership actually.

  93. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Hmm, for some reason that link is going to the tweet rather than the pic. Click on the pic and you can see the previous message.

  94. Merkin Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    Interesting results.

  95. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    The women’s hour interview with the head of stonewall was interesting and included a number of references to the shambolic scotgov.

    We are no clearer on what transphobia actually is, or indeed what constitutes a woman, but from what I can gather there’s agreement on the need to remove the word “mother” from… well… everything.

    It’s all starting to unravel, isn’t it… a few seconds of luke warm scrutiny and the whole edifice crumbles into a smouldering pile of implausible denials.

    Not one straight answer.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0011lrs

  96. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    We have to be clear in our own minds that Scotland was never colonised. We also have to make that fact clear to everyone else, both within and furth of Scotland.

    The Union was not a colonisation. The historical record is very clear about that, and we should never let anyone tell us otherwise. Scotland was emphatically NOT absorbed into England.

    At the same time, we have to be equally clear that England, both in herself and in the way she projects herself to others, on the world stage, has often (maybe even always) acted and talked as if Scotland was colonised.

    This is what England wants the world to believe. It is also what England wishes had happened. But it is very clear that this never occurred. Especially in legal and constitutional terms.

    The way England has sold the world (including the EU) a dummy, by getting everyone to equate England with the UK – and the UK’s constitution with the English constitution (as if the UK was not a new thing created only in 1707, but just a continuation of merry old England), is surely one of the biggest scams in history.

    Not just one of thee biggest scams but one of the biggest scandals – and both scam and scandal need to be seriously exposed. Not just within the current UK, but above all on the world stage.

    If you grant the above – and I think anyone who studied the case and its history properly would have to do so – then it follows that it is self-contradictory to claim that Scottish independence is a movement for decolonisation. You cannot decolonise an entity that is not a colony and has never been one.

    Moreover, if you proceed on that basis (decolonisation), you have to deny Scotland’s claim to what is simply its inherent right, as continually affirmed in different forms throughout the country’s history, including very recently. To put it on its proper and soundest legal basis, the argument for Scottish independence must reaffirm (once again) that claim of right, and move from there. Any talk of ‘decolonisation’ cannot replace that claim and, at best, can only be brought in as a secondary consideration, and subsidiary argument.

    Moreover, it would have to be kept in its proper place. First, it has to be continually affirmed, both furth of Scotland and within her, as well as within the UK, that Scotland is a fully-fledged nation in its own right currently in a Union with another nation, and not a colony of anyone. Then it has to be afformed, and made known everywhere in the whole world, that Scotland has the perfect legal right to leave that Union (the UK), whenever it wants, by unilaterally terminating the Treaty (or Treaties) that brought it (the UK) into existence in the first place (as, indeed, does England, as the other party to the Union).

    Once these two points are fully proclaimed, declared and made known to the whole world, together with the facts that put them beyond doubt and make them indisputable, THEN – and ONLY THEN, can anything at all be said about ‘decolonisation’. What it would say is this:

    1. We are not seeking decolonisation, because we are not a colony.

    2. Not being a colony, but a nation in our own right, currently in a Union of two nations, we do not need anyone’s permission to leave that Union. Neither England’s permission, nor the UN’s nor anyone else’s.

    3. One of the reasons why Scotland wants to and will leave the Union is because our Union wants to treat us and our nation as if we were a colony of theirs, when in fact we are not, and never have been. This is the false story our partner continually projects to the world, and it simply isn’t true. It is also the way our partner treats us, and acts towards us – as if we were its colony – and it has absolutely no legal or other right to do so.

    4. There are many ways in which our partner seems to us (and actually is, and often has been) unfaithful to the original agreement, and terms of our Union. These ways can be detailed, but with the qualification that we don’t actually have to prove them to anyone else – neither England nor the rest of the world – in order to make our leaving the Union legal. Legally, it is quite sufficient that, in our eyes, the Treaty has been breached and we – as a nation – have decided to leave the Union that it created.

    5. In all of this, it should be remembered that – contrary to what is projected to the world – the UK DOES HAVE A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION. England might claim that it doesn’t have a written constitution, but the UK certainly does. What ‘CONSTITUTED’ the UK, bringing it into existence as an entirely new political entity, is the Treaty (or Treaties, if you wish) of Union of 1707. Nothing else – and that Treaty / these Treaties exist in specifically written form.

    These five points are sufficient to deploy the ‘decolonisation’ argument correctly, which means in a way that would not undermine or undercut the much more important, and fundamental point, that Scotland is a nation in its own right, in a Union which it has every right to leave whenever she wants to.

    A sixth point could nevertheless be added. This would prepare the way for an independent Scotland’s future association with the EU. It would point out how flawed the Brexit process was, and why it can be argued that, in terms of its application to Scotland, it breached the EU’s own principles and terms of reference. I would put it as follows:

    6. The idea that the UK has no written constitution is another scam, which our (soon-to-be former) partner spread around the world. This lie, equating the UK’s constitution with England’s, was spread to deceive everyone. This included, most recently, the EU. The consequence was that, in negotiating Brexit, the EU actually ignored the written constitution of the UK, thinking that no such thing existed. The EU thereby broke its own rules, according to which it has to respect the constitutions of their member states, not only when or after they join but even when they are negotiating to leave.

    I know that, in terms of law, counter-arguments could and would be put up against many of the points I have raised. Ironically, one thing that all such counter-arguments would bring out, and emphasise still further, is that Scotland is definitely NOT a colony.

    I think it very likely that the counter-arguments would quickly contradict each other, and become incoherent. Our opponents would end by tying their various arguments up in so many knots as to make their own case self-evidently unsustainable. A team of competent Scottish constitutional lawyers would win hands down.

    Throughout tortuous history of the relations between Scotland and England, we have always had by far the better arguments. That won’t change. What might – will, and certainly should – change is that these better arguments will finally triumph. They will no longer be overpowered by England’s superior military or economic or international / diplomatic muscle.

    Of course, we know already that what has been waged this time round has been a mighty propaganda war, which is ongoing, with all kinds of bitter and dishonest subterfuge. On a scale, moreover, which will astonish everyone, when all is eventually revealed.

    True, our resources look weak in that regard, compared to those opposed to us.

    But truth will out, in the end. Lies eventually tie their propagators up in their own knots, and in a way that they cannot finally escape from. I am not in despair. None of us should be.

    I am not colonised, and neither is Scotland.

  97. Robert McAllan
    Ignored
    says:

    sarah@1-00pm,unfortunately sarah, Kate Forbes shares the same penchant as her boss Sturgeon namely that she seeks to have her picture taken wherever the opportunity and occasion obliges. The pages of the Ross-shire Journal and the West Highland Free Press regularly bear testament to this.

    By her failure to publicly denounce the perpetrators of the attacks visited upon Ms Cherry she emboldens the Blackman,Bardell, Speir and Robertson ‘Woke’ orchestrated factional activity.

    Kate Forbes ‘enjoys’ her Cabinet position at the pleasure of Sturgeon and to date demonstrates that she knows her place and in so doing is validating the biological science deniers and their continuing threat to women in our society. sarah, I see no glimmer there,only career enhancement prospects!

  98. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Re. Forbes, she did take some flack previously over a couple of years.
    Wonder what one has to do to gain flack deflectors…

    https://twitter.com/grouse_beater/status/1356904483700236289

  99. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Dan: thanks. That glimmer is still just about there – illuminating the straw that I am clutching!

    But otherwise it is worse than grim – Craig Murray was strip-searched yesterday in prison before he was allowed to attend a hospital appointment. They also said he had to be handcuffed but he refused.

    For God’s sake, he is a civil prisoner. I would love to see David Arbuthnot, the governor of HMP Edinburgh, swap places with Craig. And Keith Brown. What awful people they are.

  100. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    Abernethy, not Arbuthnot.

  101. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Sturgeon’s NuSNP has quietly morphed into a party of the Union, a party of Devolution, a party of the status quo.

    The wider Yes movement is seen as mere ballot box fodder for the troughers, bench warmers, charlatans and grifters who pursue their political careers in the ranks of the NuSNP, all the while paying lip-service to the cause of Scottish Independence – “jam tomorrow everybody, if we all push together, just one more time…”

    Welcome to a world where those who perjure themselves walk freely, whilst those who dare to tell the truth languish in a prison cell.

    Welcome to a world where you can paint black stripes on a white horse and the State will enable you to call it a Zebra, all the while ensuring that those who would argue what you have is a black and white striped horse are silenced, through fear of criminal proceedings.

    Welcome to a world where Orwell’s fiction has become fact. Where Kompromat is the new currency of authority. Where an online Woketorian Guard weed out the doubters and unbelievers via social media ‘pile-ons’ and threats of violence from anonymous, faceless accounts.

    Welcome to a world where Cash at Bank exists, despite its being invisible, and where the once anti-establishment has become… the establishment.

    Welcome to our world – Failte gu Alba

  102. Robert McAllan
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan @9-43pm, she could possibly start by publicly denouncing the activities of the SNP members attempting to defame and expel Joanna Cherry with it would appear the tacit support of Sturgeon.
    Kate Forbes and her ilk in their current guise are fellow travellers with no moral compass whatsoever!

  103. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Daisy Walker 9:55am
    I will apologise to you. You are an Independence supporter. I got triggered by the GRA stuff. My belief, nobody is safeguarding children. And Hatuey almost triggered me tonight with the mother stuff but I pressed the big red button of controlling my frustration. It works for me. I hope Glasgow has recovered from the COP 26 circus and you have regained control of the street. I can tell Hatuey a simple fact when dying soldiers utter their last word. What is it?. Mother, mama, mum or some such derivative. If your mum is still alive, cherish her. My late mum was a raging Independence supporter. And grumpy to boot.

  104. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    wull says:
    19 November, 2021 at 9:04 pm
    We have to be clear in our own minds that Scotland was never colonised. We also have to make that fact clear to everyone else, both within and furth of Scotland.

    The Union was not a colonisation. The historical record is very clear about that, and we should never let anyone tell us otherwise. Scotland was emphatically NOT absorbed into England.

    I think that is absolutely correct Wull, when push comes to shove, the Nation of Scotland will be saved by it’s sovereign Constitution, that, and the fact however much it might want to, Westminster cannot unilaterally alter the Treaty of Union.

    Scotland however, through Sturgeon’s feckless SNP, is not defending Scotland’s Constitutional integrity, and matters such as Brexit, which is a violation of the Union Treaty, a subjugation of Scotland’s democracy and a direct subordination of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty.

    In short, Scotland wasn’t colonised by the Treaty of Union, but there is now a colonial insurrection taking place where Scotland’s Constitutional Rights are being destroyed and Sturgeon’s SNP are complicit with it, when instead, they should be outraged and burning the house down.

    This colonialism must be halted, yet at the same time, this Colonialism is providing Scotland with all the impetus it needs to crash the fallacies of Union Treaty, and walk away from a Treaty that has been violated and irredeemably breached.

    There is another aspect to this same argument, which people are getting wrong in my opinion, and that relates to debt.

    The Treaty of Union took two constitutional equals and created the United Kingdom, and when the Treaty ends, those components will revert to their former status as Constitutional equals. Scotland will not be a seceding State any more than England will be the Continuer UK State. The UK will not exist.

    The problem is, many people, including economists, rejoice that an Indy Scotland will be debt free, but I believe that’s wrong. If Scotland is the Constitutional equal of England, then Scotland will be saddled with a proportionate share of UK debt.

    People say it’s not Scotland’s debt, but if we split as Constitutional equals, then what makes this debt England’s? I don’t believe you can have it both ways. Only a seceding Scotland would be debt free, but a seceding Scotland would forfeit a great deal of it’s Nation State integrity to admit it has been the minnow and lesser whole within the UK.

    Scotland and England will part as Constitutional Equals, and the UK debt will, in my opinion, be apportioned between both. However, Scotland’s “loss” will also be offset to a large degree by the same apportioning of UK assets. Those assets will be all assets, from whatever is in the Treasury vault to Scotland’s rightful share of the UK army, navy and Air Force.

    People should not be alarmed by this, but need to appreciate you cannot have it both ways.

    Furthermore, I also think accepting that debt will actually be beneficial for Scotland, because as Gavin McCrone detailed in his report, a Scottish currency with oil, (now renewables), would quickly become a hard currency, meaning in turn that Scottish Exports would become critically expensive due to the strength of Scottish currency. Rather than Scots fretting about £8 for a pint in Norway, Norway would be fretting about £100 for a bottle of whisky. Ok, maybe not the Norwegians…

    Taking it’s rightful share of significant debt would not only enhance Scotland’s reputation and standing as a trustworthy and honourable First World Nation, but debt could also be used peg back the value of Scottish currency and allow Scottish Exports to stay competitive.

    It’s very seductive to think of a debt free Scotland, but given the choice between a debt free seceding Scotland, or Scotland and England breaking up as Constitutional equals, then I choose the latter.

    We are not a colony, and we are in the United Kingdom voluntarily. When we divorce, we will rightfully and properly have the same proportionate share in all the bad things that we shall realise in the good things, but crucially, the Auld Nation of Scotland will have it’s continuity maintained, and our Nation will not have ceased to exist these past 314 years…. That “absurdity” being the implication if Scotland’s “secedes” from it’s UK mother country.

    Sorry Scotland, but if you don’t like it, you’ve had 314 years to get to your feet and walk out.

  105. Benhope
    Ignored
    says:

    I feel the criticism on here of Kate Forbes is not justified.

    When Derek MacKay`s activities were exposed, Kate had to take over the presentation of the budget to the Holyrood parliament at less than twenty four hours notice, and she did so brilliantly. Since then she has performed very well as finance minister.

    She is young, well qualified and very intelligent which immediately separates her from the numpties favoured by Nicola Sturgeon as her ministers (cronies), Humza Useless and Shirley-Anne-Sommerville, to name two.

    Yes, Kate has strong religious beliefs which to me means she has a strong moral compass. Remember these old fashioned things like truth, honesty, not telling lies, keeping your promises, etc. How often have you heard that Boris Johnston has no moral compass?

    I have met Kate a couple of times and found her to be a very genuine and grounded person and committed to Scottish independence. I would love to see her take over the leadership of the SNP and clear out the NS woke cabal.

    Back to the central issue. How do we get rid of Sturgeon ??

  106. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Incidentally, is that man Cairns drawing cartoons for some another outlet these day? Or has he had to get a real job?

  107. Benhope
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Graham at 3.15pm

    Does that mean that everyone in Gibralter has had a holiday ?

  108. Graf Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    Two very good posts from Wull and Breeks regarding colonies.

    “We are not a colony, and we are in the United Kingdom voluntarily. When we divorce, we will rightfully and properly have the same proportionate share in all the bad things that we shall realise in the good things, but crucially, the Auld Nation of Scotland will have it’s continuity maintained, and our Nation will not have ceased to exist these past 314 years…. That “absurdity” being the implication if Scotland’s “secedes” from it’s UK mother country.”
    —————–

    Scotland is technically not a colony by fact of the T.o.U., but a colony is not always created by someone jumping from a boat on to a beach, ramming a flag into it and claiming the land now belongs to the King/Queen of the UK.

    Colonisation is also a process whereby the larger entity over time imposes its will, political system, military superiority and language on the smaller “partner”. It subjugates and assimilates it in to the outer limb of the “Mother” country.

    That’s what happened to Scotland. 300 years of conditioning is a fkn long time.

  109. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Benhope: I too have heard personal praise of Kate Forbes. If the party is under the control of two very strange characters, FM and Chief Exec, it takes more than one person to restore normality.

    The leader has a sizeable group of acolytes in Holyrood and Westminster which makes it even harder. Add to that the change in party procedures so the NEC, staffed by acolytes, can get away with unlawful selection procedures, and it is near impossible to effect a change.

    The only way to change the leader that I can see is to stand for the leadership in the Annual Conference. If several people had stood then it makes the impossible a lot more do-able – the flak would be spread and the message could have got through to the members that all is not well under current management. Sadly it looks as if no-one has made the attempt this year.

  110. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    I think the change of SNP leader comes too late.

    The real test for the SNP will be whether they will individually engage with the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group’s proposal…

    “The Scottish Parliament should therefore pass a resolution establishing both that it is the only parliament which represents the sovereign will of the Scottish people, and to declare that the Nation of Scotland is sovereign, and is withdrawing from the 1707 Treaty of Union with England with immediate effect. This could easily be legally justified by citing the myriad of ways in which the UK Government has broken the terms of the Treaty over the years, and continues to do so in respect of Brexit and the Internal Market Bill among others.

    They should each be pressed for an answer. If you want to continue as an elected representative of Scotland, you do not have the right to remain silent.

    If they do not engage, then Scotland has dubious distinction of having a Scottish “Government” which doesn’t respect the sovereign integrity and Constitution of the people they “govern”. Holyrood will, to all intents and purposes, conveniently impeach itself.

    That situation would make Holyrood Government untenable, but more importantly, it would simultaneously greatly empower and legitimise a new Scottish political assembly which did pledge it’s allegiance to the sovereign people.

    So what are we waiting for?

  111. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    I think the change of SNP leader comes too late.

    The real test for the SNP will be whether they will individually engage with the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group’s proposal…

    “The Scottish Parliament should therefore pass a resolution establishing both that it is the only parliament which represents the sovereign will of the Scottish people, and to declare that the Nation of Scotland is sovereign, and is withdrawing from the 1707 Treaty of Union with England with immediate effect. This could easily be legally justified by citing the myriad of ways in which the UK Government has broken the terms of the Treaty over the years, and continues to do so in respect of Brexit and the Internal Market Bill among others.

    They should each be pressed for an answer. If you want to continue as an elected representative of Scotland, you do not have the right to remain silent.

    If they do not engage, then Scotland has the dubious distinction of having a Scottish “Government” which doesn’t respect the sovereign integrity and Constitution of the people they “govern”. Holyrood will, to all intents and purposes, conveniently impeach itself.

    That situation would make Holyrood Government untenable, but more importantly, it would simultaneously greatly empower and legitimise a new Scottish political assembly which did pledge it’s allegiance to the sovereign people.

    So what are we waiting for?

  112. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry for the double post… the first reported a gateway error and I thought it hadn’t flown.

  113. winifred mccartney
    Ignored
    says:

    Fantastic to see you back – your input is seriously needed to lift us all out of the mire.

    The way Joanna Cherry has been treated is despicable – the snp should be ashamed – but it seems if your face does not fit a pile in is allowed and will not be stopped by oor Nicola.

    Hope you are back – up for a fund raiser.

  114. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    @tannadiceboy.

    No worries TB. I think my first attempt was probably a bit clumsy (out of practise).

    Stonewall has instigated a big retreat today on encouraging the removal of the word ‘mother’.

    It’s a tactical retreat, not a victory.

    It will be slower in Scotland in order to make Scot Gov look stupid and incompetent (as Prof Alf Baird describes it – a scorched earth policy of governance) and because the issue is likely to resonate with the WRI types who have retired to Scotland and get them active (as if they already weren’t) for the Conservatives in their new home county.

  115. Alf Baird
    Ignored
    says:

    Colonialism is hardly a recent phenomenon insofar as Scotland is concerned. Constitutionally, Scotland is not a colony; it is in the political, economic, social and cultural senses that Scotland has been and remains subject to colonialism, all of which involves exploitation, prejudice, racism and worse.

    In all practical senses Scotland is subjected to colonial power and control, and Scotland therefore exhibits a colonial legacy in all its wretchedness – which is what gives rise to demands for independence.

    Independence is therefore very much about the decolonisation and liberation of the Scottish people, as well as the question of our constitutional right to nationhood.

    https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2021/11/19/the-case-for-freedom-2/

  116. Papko
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks

    “If they do not engage, then Scotland has the dubious distinction of having a Scottish “Government” which doesn’t respect the sovereign integrity and Constitution of the people they “govern”. Holyrood will, to all intents and purposes, conveniently impeach itself.”

    Ah well that will be catastrophic.

    “That situation would make Holyrood Government untenable,”

    So they will just ignore it and we’ll all forget about it.

    Even if your Sovereignty Commission, ended the Union; we would still have the SNP in charge and we all know what they do in Government.

  117. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Welcome back Rev Stu. You have been sorely missed.

    See when I start to type “Wings …” into my search engine? Up pops the message “The world’s most-read Scottish politics website”.

    Please don’t let this priceless asset wither away.

  118. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Tannadice Boy: “Hatuey almost triggered me tonight with the mother stuff but I pressed the big red button of controlling my frustration. It works for me…. I can tell Hatuey a simple fact when dying soldiers utter their last word. What is it?. Mother”

    I never expressed an opinion on the role of mothers. Try and read more carefully.

    I was referring to the revelation that Stonewall pressured ScotGov into deleting the word “mother” from policy documents.

  119. Fran
    Ignored
    says:

    This poll shows she isn’t winning over soft no’s and underlines the fact there is no strategy for Indy.

  120. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    Papko says:
    20 November, 2021 at 10:41 am

    Even if your Sovereignty Commission, ended the Union; we would still have the SNP in charge and we all know what they do in Government.

    On who’s authority? The 1998 Scotland Act?

  121. Effigy
    Ignored
    says:

    I read this morning that Cameron’s bidding for his friends
    in a dodgy bank will cost the tax payers £335 Million.

    Just like Hancock, Jarvid has major shares in a company
    that is being awarded NHS contracts.

    How about this think tank- Scotland would not have enough energy
    if independent as we are dependant on Westminster subsidies??

    Unbelievable !

  122. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks 8.56 am

    I’m glad the SSRG’s proposals are stirring debate. How much the voting population as a whole rather than the political anoraks are engaged is another thing. Irrespective of whether the SNP changes leaders, or is “reclaimed” by its rank and file members (neither of which seems that likely to me….) any cunning plan to effectively “impeach” Holyrood, or to assert the primacy of the sovereign Scottish people etc. needs to face the same issue however: how do you convincingly demonstrate a mandate for independence to the the international community?

    Showing that the settled will of the Scottish people is to end the union has to be recognised by the majority of other independent states to have any value, and there are a limited number of ways to do that. If the referendum route is either frustrated by British nationalists, or abandoned by the broader Yes movement, then plebiscitary elections are just as acceptable. Any other route is much less certain to result in international recognition, although it’s not impossible: the Czech/Slovak velvet divorce for example didn’t use either, but the proponents of ending their federation were the parties of power in both parts of the federation.

    If those advancing an alternative route to Scottish independence than #indyref2 or plebiscitary elections want to convince us their route is feasible, they need to demonstrate that they are in control of parties which represent a majority. That’s only going to happen if they “convert” the current SNP to their way of thinking, or if they replace it in the same way Sinn Fein replaced the Irish Nationalists in Ireland.

    Isn’t it a lot more likely in the Scottish context that the shortest route to independence is a British nationalist refusal to grant #indyref2 on the same terms as #indyref1, followed by pro-nationalist parties standing on platform of gaining a majority in plebiscitary elections being an immediate mandate for independence? That being so we have to pin our hopes on the SNP changing policy, or its current leadership being replaced, or the party itself being marginalised.

    None of those are going to be easy.

  123. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    20 November, 2021 at 11:55 am

    …. how do you convincingly demonstrate a mandate for independence to the the international community?

    It is an absolute and binary condition. Scotland is sovereign.

    Even supposing 99.99% of the population was pro-Union and content with subservience and Scotland not being sovereign, it still wouldn’t change the binary condition, that for as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. Scotland is sovereign by legal definition and Scotland’s Sovereignty is inalienable. The job is taken. There is no vacancy for anybody else’s sovereignty.

    In those circumstances, Scotland does not need to demonstrate any democratic mandate for Independence. If the Treaty of Union has been breached, that too is an unalterable legal reality that is not dependent on a political mandate.

    Scotland can declare the Treaty broken, and the Union is ended. It is likely and indeed preferable that such a Constitutional change would benefit from having a ratification plebiscite.

    But, even in the darkest scenario of Scotland ending the Union but failing to win endorsement through the subsequent ratification plebiscite, the Treaty of Union would still be ended and could not be resurrected. All the ballot would be is an aspirational mandate from the people of Scotland to create a new Union from scratch, but that’s a mandate which the Parliament of England what have to agree too, and to which both nations would have to agree terms.

    Last point, even though we don’t need one, Scotland HAS a democratic mandate to end the Treaty of Union. In 2016, the Sovereign people of Scotland voted emphatically for the UK to remain in Europe. The Westminster Parliament breached the Treaty of Union by subjugating Scotland’s sovereign will, and it also demolished it’s own unwritten “Convention” that Scotland was in a consensual Union, when Scotland had expressly and unequivocally refused to give it’s consent.

    Arguably, Westminster has already ended the Union by breaching it. Scottish Independence is now a technical matter of consequence.

  124. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks 2.53 pm

    None of that really helps, sorry. EVERY people is sovereign and has the right to self determination, but there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip. For Scotland to achieve independence we don’t just have to convince the majority of Scots, we have to convince the majority of other independent states that it has the support of the majority of Scots.

    I suspect most Scots, which probably includes a significant number of unionists, accept that the Scottish people are sovereign. That doesn’t equate to no mandate being needed however: that won’t wash either domestically or internationally.

    Who/what is it you assert is going to declare the Treaty broken and the union ended? The courts? The Scottish government? A political party or parties? I can accept the proposition that a referendum or plebiscitary election victory isn’t the sole route to independence, I’m still looking for clarity as to how you see that happening in reality though, not in the abstract.

    When the Czech and Slovak Velvet divorce happened, polls (in Sept. 1992) indicated that only 37% of Slovaks and 36% of Czechs favoured dissolution of their federation, so it was largely a project pushed through by the Czech and Slovak governments and elites, not by the people. The Slovak parliament adopted the “declaration of independence of the Slovak nation” on 17/07/1992 which was accepted by both sides in a meeting six days later. Vaclav Havel resigned as President of Czechoslovakia in 20/07/1992 rather than preside over dissolution of the federation.

    I suppose what I’m interested in, and trying to get a straight answer on, is how exactly proponents of the non referendum or non-plebiscitary election route see happening in practice: what are the detailed mechanics of “the Scottish people” expressing their intent and establishing an independent state.

  125. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, Breeks, for what you say in your post @ 11.35 pm on 19th November, on the subject of Scotland not being a ‘colony’. I think we are fully agreed on that one.

    I also agree with almost everything you say about Scotland taking its fair share of the former UK’s debt when the UK is finally dissolved. For me, this is primarily a matter of justice.

    However, your post also points out ways in which this will actually serve Scotland’s long-term interests, even economically, giving her the credibility on the international stage she will need from the outset.

    The crucial point will be how our share of the national debt is calculated. The most important points here will be economic.

    For me, the fact that the revenues from Scottish oil were not credited to Scotland has to come into play here. Through an obvious accounting trick, or subterfuge, 90% was siphoned off from a resource in Scottish waters to be spent on huge projects furth of Scotland. These mainly profited London, and/or the rest of the South of England, and they still do. That is a very sizeable chunk of money which ought to be re-attributed, in such a way that it reduces the amount of UK national debt Scotland is obliged to take on.

    The other huge item that ought to come into play in these calculations is the unilateral redrawing of the sea border between Scotland and England. This action, incidentally, would have to be considered a straightforward breach of the Treaty of Union, especially if the straight-line sea border was already in place in 1707. But even if it wasn’t in place then, and came into existence only later, Westminster still had no right to redraw it.

    That point is eminently winnable for Scotland, and there are two possible approaches for her to take. She could either say: give it all back to us, which would be my own preference. Or else, alternatively, its worth could be calculated, no doubt by some independently agreed assessors, and Scotland compensated accordingly. The amount arrived at would then be taken off the amount of national debt Scotland is required to take on.

    I expect both these moves – and there might be others similar to them that equally make sense – would result in a substantial decrease in the amount of national debt an independent Scotland would be saddled with. Given the population difference, it cannot be more than 10% of the total anyway (though even 10% is huge), and when these other aspects are factored in it is bound to come to quite a bit less than that.

    Finally, less importantly, there is also a question of names. All parties concerned will have to agree that there is NO ‘continuing UK’. The UN should require clear and formal acceptance of this, for instance when Scotland applies for membership, and also when the rest of what was the UK does likewise.

    Scotland will still be Scotland – probably as a Republic rather than a Kingdom – but what will the other entity call itself?

    If the ‘no continuing state’ principle means the end of what used to be called the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’, I don’t see how we can altogether prevent the other country emerging from the break-up calling itself the ‘United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’. If, that is, what they want to call themselves.

    If that is their option, it would indeed be preferable that they call themselves the ‘New United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’, or ‘New UK’ for short, thereby maijng plain the distinction from the old UK which people are accustomed to. But we can’t force this on them, unless the international community (UN) does so, for instance in order to prevent any confusion.

    Whatever the case, it is important to emphasise that neither entity can claim to be the continuation of the old UK. They simply cannot be, either legally or even in terms of common sense.

    Taking our fair share of the debt is also the only way to facilitate future friendly relations between the two future countries which emerge – or rather re-emerge – from the demise of what was the UK. If we were to escape from having to pay our fair share on the basis of some kind of legal technicality, there would be endless bitterness and recrimination from our southern neighbour which would serve no one’s interest at all. The ending of the Union should also be the end of all of that hostility, once and for always.

    As independent countries, both England and Scotland will need to foster good and mutually respectful relations with each other.

  126. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    ” what are the detailed mechanics of “the Scottish people” expressing their intent and establishing an independent state.”

    The Scottish people have stated their position quite clearly by voting in earlier this year a majority of indy minded MSPs and MPs, even if those MSPs and MPs haven’t lived up t o the task we’ve given them.

    so the Scottish public has ben represented quite clearly at Holyrood and Westminster.

    As the SSRG has already said, and we know as well. “The next papers the SSRG will produce will include a focus on the innumerable breaches of the 1707 Treaty of Union up to the present day to bolster the legitimacy of this strategy.”

    “The SSRG therefore respectfully yet confidently submits to you, as leaders of pro-independence parties in Holyrood and Westminster, that collectively you hold the electoral, internationally legal, and moral authority to withdraw Scotland from the 1707 Treaty of Union and affirm the Scottish Parliament as the sole representative of the sovereignty of the Scottish people.”

  127. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS 8.12 pm

    It doesn’t really help to say 48.99% voted for the SNP/Greens on constituency vote and 50.12% for SNP/Greens/Alba on the regional vote though does it? The position the Scottish people isn’t currently that they support the proposals being put forward by the SSRG, or any other alternative to #indyref2 is it?

    We might wish that was different, and want it to change, but the kind of changes you quote depend on “the Scottish people” forcing their representatives to use the “electoral, internationally legal, and moral authority” they hold to assert the primacy of the Scottish parliament. I’m interested in hearing how you think that is going to be done, what the (realistic) timescale is for it happening in your opinion, and whether that’s likely all things considered to be quicker than say…winning a plebiscitary election?

    I can see the logic of pushing the SSRG “repatriation” option, but even if it became official policy for a party like Alba, it’s a long way from being accepted as a route map to achieving independence by the SNP and Greens isn’t it? So how does that happen?

  128. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “The position the Scottish people isn’t currently that they support the proposals being put forward by the SSRG,”

    That’s because not enough people know about it yet, the unionist media and our colonial government (SNP) certainly don’t want the masses to know about it, but they will and social media will be the vehicle to spread it far and wide.

  129. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS 8.52 pm

    So we need to inform and convince a majority of Scots to support changing the route to achieve independence from gaining a Yes majority in a referendum to an SSRG style assertion of sovereignty and “repatriation of power” followed by a declaration of independence by the Scottish parliament?

    I’m still struggling to see how that’s going to happen more quickly than (for example) trying to convert the SNP to the idea of changing from a referendum to plebiscitary elections?

  130. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    “For Scotland to achieve independence we don’t just have to convince the majority of Scots, we have to convince the majority of other independent states that it has the support of the majority of Scots. Andy Ellis 4.08pm

    Mr Ellis maintaining his reputation for unadulterated waffle as welcomed by the British state. Proliferating debate with illusary hurdles undermines single-minded confidence, and distracts from 1,000 years of Scotland’s history, and a long discredited Treaty that has exploited Scots through indentured servitude ever since.

  131. robbo
    Ignored
    says:

    You ELLIS

    Cuntie Mc fuck . Shut the feck up ya rammer .

  132. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    McFuck’s questions are valid.

    According to Breeks, the Union was dissolved when Brexit was foisted on us against our “sovereign” will. According to others, we never really lost our sovereignty and independence; it’s all an illusion of some sort. There’s no role or requirement for majority support in these philosophical positions.

    Without disagreeing, not that anyone needs to agree anyway, I don’t see where the point of contact is with reality. It’s ‘ghost in the machine’ stuff.

    If Scotland is the physical body and sovereignty is the soul, where is the point of contact that leads to locomotion and meaningful change?

    Within the constraints of the current framework, the point of contact is a referendum. From that Boolean juncture everything follows, legally, philosophically, politically, etc.

  133. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, Breeks, for what you say in your post @ 11.35 pm on 19th November, on the subject of Scotland not being a ‘colony’. I think we are fully agreed on that one.

    I also agree with almost everything you say about Scotland taking its fair share of the former UK’s debt when the UK is finally dissolved. For me, this is primarily a matter of justice.

    However, your post also helped me to see various ways in which this will actually serve Scotland’s long-term interests. Economically, as you point our, it will give her the credibility she will need as a player on the international stage.

    There are other benefits. Taking our fair share of the debt is the only way to facilitate future friendly relations between the two future countries which emerge – or rather re-emerge – from the previous UK. If we were to escape from having to pay our fair share on the basis of some kind of legal technicality, there would be endless bitterness and recrimination from our southern neighbour which would serve no one’s interest.

    We surely want independence done in a way that respects everyone, and heralds in a new kind of relationship between Scotland and England. This new relationship, beneficial to both without either country exploiting or undermining the other, will be nothing like the centuries of perpetual conflict that occurred in the Middle Ages.

    To be honest, although I have always been totally opposed to the Union ever since I was a kid, I now think if its terms had been fully respected and honestly implemented, it could have achieved that goal.

    Instead, and perhaps most unfortunately, right from the beginning, virtually while the ink was still drying on the 1707 Treaty documents, the terms were ignored and England began to act as if it had colonised Scotland. That was quite obvious for the first 60 or 70 years of the Union, and had devastating effects on Scotland.

    That ‘colonial master’ attitude from our southern neighbour later continued, albeit less visibly and more subtly, for a couple of centuries from the Enlightenment onwards. It was under the radar, not out in the open, but still very much present and ongoing.

    Scots reconciled to the Union (despite the subterfuges which had brought it about) had their view of it, which was actually the correct and legal and entirely legitimate view, as set out in the 1707 documents. They were ‘allowed’ by the southern neighbour to keep that view, so long as it had very few real consequences, and did not imping on England’s domination of ‘these islands’.

    At the same time, the English deliberately (and culpably) ignored both the actual terms of the 1707 Treaty and the nature of the new legal entity it had brought about, except those elements of it which were in their own interests. They continued to presume (quite wrongly) that the Union meant that they had taken Scotland over, once and for all.

    England, they mistakenly thought, had subjected the Scots and Scotland. What English kings since Edward I and even before him had long aspired to do by military means, without success, had now been achieved through the bribery, corruption and deceit that had undermined the Scottish parliament (and illicitly trampled on the rights and desires of the Scottish people) to bring the Union into existence. But they never saw it as a Union at all; rather, as a subjugation of the (population-wise) smaller part (Scotland) to the larger part (England). A colonial take-over, therefore, and not that Union between two equal partners – both free in themselves, and neither in a state of subjection to the other – which the Treaty had clearly presumed, and set out.

    The English signatories signed one thing, and thought and believed something else. Or, more to the point, their political masters in the English government did: as if what the document said was not what it meant. The English then began to act as if the Treaty had confirmed the centuries-long English dream, or objective in regard to Scotland. This was entirely the opposite of the Treaty’s own terms. The English ‘partner’, or rather party to the agreement, therefore felt free to ignore its terms.

    In the English political mind-set, the Treaty of Union of 1707 therefore became something entirely different from what the terms of that Treaty actually said, and from what both parties were required to presume in order for it to be correctly understood. What had happened, the English convinced themselves, was what they had hoped to achieve by it. This was something entirely different from what the Treaty said, and from what they had signed up to.

    This is the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ world of English politics where, as one of the characters says, ‘words mean what I say they mean’. in other words, they do not mean anything in themselves, and I am not bound by them. They only mean what I want them to mean. And what that eventually means is that ‘words mean whatever happens to be advantageous to me, at any particular moment – so there! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!’

    In other words, words have no intrinsic meaning and neither do laws or treaties; they are all pliable, and can and ought to be interpreted differently in different circumstances, according to whatever suits best the interests of certain individuals or, more particularly, the interests of ‘the nation’. And, lest there be any doubt, ‘the nation’ actually means ‘England’! Thus, this concept, ‘the nation’, can be expressed in several different ways – Great Britain / the UK etc. – but what it really and truly, actually and always means (at last a word with a specific meaning!) is, precisely, specifically, England!

    It amazed me – naive as I must no doubt be – how strongly and quickly this ‘English colonial attitude’ towards Scotland and the Scots re-emerged when Scotland struck oil, and still more so when the possibility of Scottish independence began to gain traction. Not only was the attitude unpleasantly vitriolic, it was also extraordinarily visceral. Which only went to show, at least to me, how deeply entrenched it is in what I can only call, for the want of a better term, the ‘English psyche’. Not, please note, in every English person individually, but in the largely unstated, only semi-conscious hinterland of what for so many in England it means to be English.

    If most historical peoples or nations are to some extent defined against, or in differentiation from, other peoples or nations – usually their neighbours, from whom they distinguish themselves, (not least as distinct political and cultural entities) – and if this is true, as indeed it is, in regard to Scotland and England, we must remember that this is a two-way street. And we should be honest enough to admit that this involves a degree of antagonism. It is not just that ‘these terrible Scots are against these nice English people’, as the propaganda that pours out on us incessantly would have us believe (some of it unfortunately internalised by some Scots themselves), it is also a fact that the English really think that the Scots should not, as such, exist. Hence the underlying attitude towards Scots that ‘you are not a nation’, ‘you are not a people’, and ‘you shouldn’t pretend or try to be what you just aren’t’; by contrast, we, the English, really are all of these things.

    The propaganda is not new, not in the least. Just read what Edward I said in his time, not least before the Papal court, the greatest international instance of the day. And then read ongoing versions of the same thing, from his son and grandson (Edward II and III), through to others like Henry VIII and Cromwell, down to the machinations and false interpretations of Union of 1707 and beyond, to our own day.

    This anti-Scotland narrative and attitude is a continuing strand in English political history, and it is essentially aggressive, for it aims ultimately at Scotland’s final obliteration. That was recognised and explicitly articulated not just by the English but by the Scots, in their defence of their position in 1301, and it is still in full swing today.

    We are being told that we should not say such things any more, or even point them out, because to do so is now ‘not nice’, or ‘not politically correct’. When you hear such things being said, no matter by whom, you have to ask yourself: who profits by no longer pointing this out, or even remembering it?

    If there is a propaganda war in full swing, is all this ‘niceness’ really ‘nice’? Or is it just another way of waging and reinforcing one side of that war, in order to bring about precisely that objective – the obliteration of Scotland. By its being absorbed entirely and irreversibly into England, and thus subjugated to her (England)? So that our interests and aspirations become entirely subjected to her (England’s) interests and aims. Even, indeed, at the expense of our own!

    You Scots – you don’t exist as a people. And neither does your country – it’s only a piece of land, owned and subjected to the crown. And that does not mean your crown but ours, the English crown. (“You can call it ‘the British crown’ or ‘the UK crown’ if you want, but remember what these words actually mean. They mean ‘the English crown’. Because words mean what i say they mean! Keep smoking that pipe! And pipe down!”)

  134. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Absolutely brilliant post Wull :

    No doubt some will ask ” yea yea but what relevance does this have to our situation now ? ”

    One – of many possible – answers would be

    ” Why are the Magna Carta and the – so-called- Henry V111 Powers still referred to then ? ”

    Is History only * relevant * when used by the dominant entity ?

  135. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    wull says:
    20 November, 2021 at 7:41 pm

    The crucial point will be how our share of the national debt is calculated. The most important points here will be economic.

    For me, the fact that the revenues from Scottish oil were not credited to Scotland has to come into play here….

    That’s a really interesting point you make Wull, and it won’t be easy to resolve.

    One of the UN’s criteria for assessing or defining colonialism is whether a nations resources are expended for the benefit of the nation or someone else.

    Arguably, Scotland could sue for more than straightforward revenue, and choose to pursue a missing Norwegian style Oil Fund, particularly since the proposal was made but specifically rejected by Westminster.

    What I wouldn’t want however is to push England to the point of Bankruptcy. Not that they wouldn’t deserve it, but because England might then become the modern day Weimar Republic, crippled with hyperinflation, unemployment, and a burning resentment towards Scotland. The ugliness of English Nationalism and English Exceptionalism is already there to be seen, and UK Arms dealing, which would become English Arms dealing, is already an inseparable element of their foreign trade. Scary.

    I don’t believe that England would spiral into a repetition of 1930’s Germany, but that’s maybe what people said about 1930’s Germany. England being a money laundering tax haven and weapons manufacturer, and with America’s current instabilities and love for it’s Military, the perennial Middle East “problem”, and a European Union that thinks for itself, and doesn’t necessarily see “the West” as it’s special relationship Ally…. Well, there are some ominous ingredients for dark times ahead, and frankly, not much optimism to be found.

    Scotland in my opinion would need to enter UK Dissolution negotiations like an uncompromising lion rampant, but perhaps, I stress perhaps, be magnanimous, and be prepared to occasionally indulge some lamb like tendencies, just for the pragmatism of a quiet life after the Union’s demise.

    Be prepared to compromise, but actually compromise, professionally -negotiate, secure concessions, – don’t crumble and concede… Now who, in Sturgeon’s nSNP seems even remotely capable of doing that? – Answers on a Post Card to Joanna Cherry.

    Unless people would prefer Sturgeon? (Oh God no!). The fat Banker? (Oh no!). Angus Robertson? (Just oh!). (Just NO!)

    Or maybe that long-standing pillar of the British Establishment Wishart? Stewart Reds-in-the-head MacDonald??? Maybe Drew Henry and David Lindon? (in their dress uniforms naturally), or Alyn Smith naturally in a dress? There’s Kirsty Blackman who could probably be trusted to get the UK’s Twitter Account taken down.. That’ll show ‘em.

    Thank God there’s ALBA and Alex Salmond. That wee chunk of finest Scottish granite that is Lego to Westminster’s bare feet.

  136. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Grouse Beater 9.59 pm

    I see you don’t attempt (or even have?) any answers to the questions raised though Gareth. It tells us all we need to know about your approach. that’s no great surprise to me personally given your previous attempts at character assassination, but good luck with persuading current “soft No” voters with n attitude like your.

    In the end you’re just a less sweary version of the charming robbo at 11.53 pm. If the hurdles we face are all illusory, then doubtless it’s going to be an easy task. References to undermining “single-minded confidence” for daring to ask questions is just deflection on your part. Those banging on about colonisation and the Treaties of Union appear lost in their own wee nativist bubble.

    The vast majority of Scots – nationalists and unionists – can only point and laugh at their cringe worthy antics.

  137. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey 6.08 am

    Good luck getting an answer from the obscurantists now infesting this site Hatuey. Isn’t it telling that nary a one of the usual suspects has even attempted – still less succeeded – in addressing any of the issues raised? All we have in response is varaitions on a theme: sweary abuse from the knuckle dragging fraternity like robbo, or de haut on bas deflection from Gareth Wardell who wouldn’t demean himself to answer fairly simple questions.

    I think the “ghost in the machine” analogy is a good one. As Gareth’s contribution shows, these folk honestly believe that single minded confidence and banging on about colonisation and the breaking of the Treaties of Union by the perfidious English will magically transport us to the sunny uplands of independence.

    Whether the point of contact can only be a referendum is open to debate: I still think plebiscitary elections are more likely in the short to medium term.

    Apparently to the hard of thinking BTL in here though it’s “unadulterated waffle” to even ask the question about what their plan providing “the locomotion that leads to real change” actually is. Somehow it all just happens because *reasons*!

    Cue the tirades from the usual suspects about me being variously an SNP stooge / Britnat / 77 Brigade / MI5 / not a real nationalist.

  138. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    A takeover bid still going on and on on this site – Last Word Ellis back again.

    Breeks and Wull , first class.

  139. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    Joanna Cherry as a replacement to Sturgeon would be I think a game changer. The direction of the SNP would change.

    She would of course be a big asset to Alba but for the foregoing reason she would be better remaining in the SNP and becoming leader. The Establishment know this, and like Alex Salmond, Craig Murray, et al, their policy is to try to destroy those who present a real threat to them of moving Scotland to independence.

    Under Sturgeon the SNP has become pro establishment, the parliament but a community council filled with somnolent Pygmies.

    This survey reveals many mixed messages and some very clear. But for me, the one thstvrevealed 48% still want independence when the subject of independence never touches the lips of our SNP MPs or MSPs tells me that the dream has not died.

    Far from it, a reinvigorated campaign under new committed and sound leadership with someone like Joanna Cherry, would change the entire political scene.

  140. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dorothy Devine 9.40 am

    Ah, I see the inimitable Dorothy is back to provide her intellectual contribution; funnily enough it consists solely of complaining about me contributing, on the somewhat strange basis apparently that I want the last word and because I’m attempting to take the site over. Given that there are plenty of other people posting way more than I do, that seems rather counter intuitive.

    Still, logic seems not to be her strong suit. Dotty by name, Dotty by nature perhaps? Do you ever contribute anything other than sniping Dorothy, or is that just what floats yer boat? It’s a wee bit stalker-ish and obsessive.

  141. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotland 20 November, 2021 at 8:12 pm

    ”The Scottish people have stated their position quite clearly by voting in earlier this year a majority of indy minded MSPs and MPs, …”

    Jeezo Republic, what you smoking?

    You can’t use the “Tin Of Beans” analogy with politics, and most certainly not with Scottish politics.

    Like all of us, you expect a tin labelled “beans” to contain beans.

    But you can’t any longer expect politicians labelled “nationalists” or “independence supporters” to support these positions. No more than you can expect politicians labelled “conservatives” to conserve, “labour” to promote jobs and employment, or “green” to prioritise the environment.

    Andy Ellis is right. You want Scots Indy? Then you start at the bottom, with a new party, purged of liars, troughers, narcissists, reality deniers and time servers, and build up from there.

  142. Fionan
    Ignored
    says:

    Jut ignore the troll, Dorothy. Like you, I had welcomed the short break from its repetitive, negative and often abusive attacks on others. I had hoped it had given up at last and crawled away back under its stone, but it really is best if everyone just scrolls by. It has nothing reasonable to contribute here and its sole purpose seems to be bigging up its own ego by doing everyone else down. If it really believes it knows best, then we all need to leave it to its pseudo-intellectual know-all drivel, while the rest of us find something more interesting to discuss. The personal attacks are no more than a fishing hook to drag you into its mindless world to feed its need for aggression and personal insults. Dont big up its tiny fragile ego and it might go away and leave us all in peace.

    Will, a good enough argument re taking a share of the uk debt, but Scotland didnt run up that debt, it isnt Scotlands debt and therefore no share is a ‘fair share’. There is nothing fair about this union and never has been. England as UK owes us, and owes us bigtime, not the other way round. But of course measures are necessary to prevent our new independent currency from being too hard.

    On another note and probably OT, what do others think of the increasing likelihood of NATO sparking off war with nuclear Russia – in spite of Russia and Putin trying endlessly to get US/Nato round the table to clear things through discussion and despite Russia sending millions of gallons of deisel to US to help US with their fuel crisis? But maybe not so OT, because if that war starts, and some commentators now se it as inevitable, Scotland and all of us will be evaporated having never tasted renewed indy.

  143. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main says:
    21 November, 2021 at 10:42 am

    Andy Ellis is right. You want Scots Indy? Then you start at the bottom, with a new party, purged of liars, troughers, narcissists, reality deniers and time servers, and build up from there.

    I don’t agree John. I actually think the Unionist Establishment fully understands and thrives on Scotland’s small ‘c’ conservatism and reluctance to do anything too radical. “Oh it’s gotta be done correctly or it won’t count!”… blah, blah, blah…

    (Remind you of anybody’s “Gold Standard Referendum”?)

    The establishment of the Union wasn’t done correctly. Not withstanding all the corruption and crookedness of the Scots “Lords”, the attitude of the English Parliament towards the Union was that it had “catch’d” Scotland. How do you interpret “catch’d” other than a successful entrapment?

    My attitude towards this Union is that it is despicable, dishonest, and unfit for purpose. Quid pro quo… Scotland show the same contempt for the Treaty of Union as Westminster. Only Scotland’s objective should be to end it as quickly as possible by the most expedient route that is lawful.

  144. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    The thing is, Andy, all the criticisms you make of people on here, as well as the point that there’s no clear route map offered by them, could probably have been said of the Slovak nationalists in 1992. There was no blueprint for the way it panned out there and if there was, it had nothing in common with the route you are advocating for us — there was no majority support for dissolution amongst Czechs or Slovaks, as you yourself pointed out.

    Every situation is different.

    The big difference here in the UK is the lack of alacrity and willingness to budge on the part of the British State; instead of accommodating the Scottish people’s desire for independence, as Vaclav Havel did, they’re playing their old games — propaganda, lies, spying, dirty tricks, infiltration, co-optation, and worse, etc.

    In that response to the independence movement, the British State, more forcefully and bluntly than anyone else, is making the point that they regard Scotland as a colony.

    As for this hallowed majority that everybody claims they want to see, it’s right in front of our eyes. The lies and dirty tricks listed above are enough to stop it finding expression, but we all know it’s there, and the British State knows it too, otherwise why are they so keen to undermine it and deny it expression?

    The hope of the British State in the weak position it finds itself, is that we all lose heart, give up, get distracted, and go away. As long as we don’t do that their position remains hopeless and indefensible.

    In recognition of the above, every voice that continues to express support for independence is of huge value and significance.

  145. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    In regards to the point alluded to by so many on here, Wings included as I recall, that a majority of votes rather than a majority of MSPs is the threshold that matters, even there it isn’t so simple.

    If that situation was inverted and a clear majority of Scots voted for independence supporting parties but, through some quirk of the electoral system, failed to achieve a majority of MSPs, is there anyone that doubts the BBC and its political wing (the Tory Party) would be telling us that vote share doesn’t matter, that it’s the number of MSPs that matters in a parliamentary system?

    In most countries, including the US and the UK, it’s seats that matter, not the share of the vote. When did Scotland decide to do things differently? It’s not as if we have a pure PR system which would, axiomatically, put emphasis on vote share.

    At the end of the day, it’s the number of seats rather than the number of votes that matters as far as forming the government is concerned. The system that they designed to keep Scotland in place, somethings they are pretty open about, ignores vote share and tells us that it’s seats that matter. Who are we to argue?

    I find it quite odd that nobody here or anywhere else has ever really taken issue with this. We all just accepted the argument and moved on.

  146. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Hatuey 12.22 pm

    We are in violent agreement it seems. I agree that every situation is different, and that while there are similarities between us and say the Catalans, Quebecois and Slovaks there are also as many differences. Reading up about the Velvet Divorce was interesting because it shows that even when there isn’t majority public support, determined actors in government can force things through.

    To an extent the attitude of the Czechs in the early 19990’s was similar to the attitude of some British nationalists to attempts by Scots nationalists (as they see it) to be the Scottish tail wagging the British dog: they weren’t willing to accommodate the Slovak view of how a loose confederation would work.

    Of course, as we’ve seen on here, anyone pointing out that those advancing the “we don’t need a referendum or plebiscite” line are effectively just Emperors strutting around naked demanding we admire their new clothes, gets roundly abused and accused of being the wrong kind of nationalists. How these roasters hope to convince a majority of Scots to support them eludes me.

    The British state doesn’t have to point out they regard Scotland as a colony: that remains a crock of shit that no reasonable person should give a moments credence to. It’s still very much the territory of the moon howling fringe. The reason we’re not independent isn’t that we’re colonised it’s just that the Yes movement hasn’t made a convincing enough case and that too many Scots lack political balls.

    It’s not the MSM’s fault, or the fact there are too many incomers it’s just hard to free slaves from chains they revere.

    I agree that “every voice that continues to express support for independence is of huge value and significance”, but many of the nutter fringe in here patently don’t as their reaction above amply demonstrate.

    They can’t even answer the basic questions being asked of them on their “cunning plan” route to independence without a referendum, plebiscitary election or party with a majority: we’re just supposed to trust them that it will happen because *reasons*.

    John Main @ 10.42 am hit the nail on the head, but the reality deniers are strong in here. They believe there is a magic short cut to independence, and like all faith based positions it can’t be gainsaid or rationally explained, because it has no real basis in fact. These people are as big a danger to the chances of achieving independence as British nationalists.

  147. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    Seems we all see the problem, but just can’t settle on the solution.

    BawJaws at No.10 and Brexit were the biggest open goals to come along since 2014, and just like our national team’s usual performance, both ‘sitters’ were missed – or to be more accurate, the “Captain” simply walked the “team” off the pitch, because she wanted to have a chat in the dressing room about gender woo-woo, and the former Captain, and the cash left in the club kitty, etc. etc.

    And before you could say “what strategy for Independence”, Covid came along and the Indy can didn’t just get kicked down the road, it was chucked in the bin marked “Recycling”.

    So, until we can organise a new team, with a new Captain, there’s little point in playing another game – ’cause we’ll just lose, and the fans will drift away, along with our best players.

    What I’m trying to say is focus on the team, then focus on the next match.

    Some on here are trying to do it the other way around, and it’ll simply never work that way.

  148. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    Just reading breeks and wills posts in quick momentary catch up.

    Well thought out and conversed, with a few other commentators adding an interesting addition or side line.

    Except for the usual, Halt! Who goes there! Turn the spot light on them, You vil tell me all you’re plans, and connections or I vill report you to headquarters.

    There I’ll be NO free finkers in my Scotland,

  149. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks and Wulls posts.

  150. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    Another interesting read in the mirror of all places.

    44 Tory MPs who face cash bid to topple them over Aussie Trade Deal,

    Some interesting Scottish Tory names in the mix.

  151. Fireproofjim
    Ignored
    says:

    Further to comments on the vast revenues from North Sea Oil. Every penny of the countless billions went to the UK treasury who blew the lot on reducing top rate income tax from 60% to 40%. Greatly benefitting the wealthiest but doing next to nothing for the average person.
    Of course not a penny was invested for the future, unlike prudent Norway, now the richest country in the world.
    The treasury refused to allow even a population share to be spent in Scotland although 95% of the oil came from Scottish waters.
    And the billions are still rolling in although it is not fashionable to boast of your oil revenues these days.
    This is why I disagree with those who say we should offer to take a share of the National Debt. We never had a share in creating it and we never had a share in any revenues from oil.

  152. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    https://archive.md/SLBQq

    Credit where it’s due, the National printed an abridged version of the Scottish Sovereignty Research Groups’s open letter… and will print the full version in subsequent editions…

    Just imagine if they printed a million copies of that for widespread distribution, rather than a Sunday Supplement about St Nikla, patron saint of narcissists.

  153. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    And what about the uneven tax revenues and expenditures under the Barnett formula when it come to sorting out the debt that may be owed by one side of the treaty of the union.

  154. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Fionan , it has far too much to say for itself – none of which I read now , I merely note the presence that promised to leave all us idiots to our own ramblings but it failed even in that.

    I agree with you about Russia . I cannot believe the unsubstantiated drivel against that country or the aggression shown by parking weapons on her borders and expecting that to be acceptable.

  155. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Andy Ellis is right. You want Scots Indy? Then you start at the bottom, with a new party, purged of liars, troughers, narcissists, reality deniers and time servers, and build up from there.”

    John Main @10.42am.

    I don’t think I’ve read such a naive comment as the one above on this blog. Anyone who thinks that there can exist a political party without those above within its ranks is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, human nature rules it out.

    We didn’t need an indyref to get into this union and we certainly don’t need one to get out of it. It should’ve been annulled centuries ago, due to the illegal way it was forced on the people of Scotland, but it wasn’t because a small percentage of co-opted Scots made money out of it, and some are still doing so.

    Westminster has broken the 1707 Treaty of Union on multiple occasions, however our current FM and her clique which controls the party that we voted into power to deliver us independence, has become extremely comfortable to just govern Scotland within the illegal union.

    If Sturgeon would’ve called upon voters in May to give their list votes to the Alba party there would be around 90 indy minded MSPs at Holyrood. Some of those MSPs don’t actually want independence, however they were voted in by us to deliver it and they haven’t.

    So the process has to be taken out of their hands, with the SSRG’s route put to them for all to see, (the SSRG has already written to them) if as we suspect that this viable route out of this 1707 forced union is shunned by the SNP and Greens, the public must be informed that the party for independence has done so, and the public (indy voters) must act accordingly by withholding their votes from them starting at next years council elections.

    Getting the SSRG’s message out to its widest audience is the biggest stumbling block.

  156. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Pete Wishart is so embedded at Westminster that he’s now threatening the Me police force with legal action if they don’t investigate Tory sleaze.

    It would fit this treacherous b&stard better if he threatened Sturgeon with legal action for not trying to get us out of this union.

    Wishart will need to be dragged kicking and screaming from Westminster to get him out.

    https://archive.md/5WnGy

  157. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    Colour us all unsurprised that the usual suspects are invariably Putin’s stooges as well as nativist moon howlers. All we need is their hot take on Covid vaccination being a plot for the trifecta.

    They lack even the basic self awareness to see that their world view is about as palatable to most Scots as that of Trump and his benighted cronies. There has sadly always been a sub-set of Scots nationalists that were anti-American, anti-NATO, anti-EU. They’re about as representative of Scots as the Socialist Worker’s Party or the EDL is of most English folk.

    It’s a shame a minority of zoomers and true believers in truthy woo-woo has infected the site in its twilight period. It’s grist to the mill of deeply unpleasant chancers like Stewart McDonald, slytherin Alyn Smyth etc., because it allows them to paint mainstream folk from Alba and those who see merit in the SSRG’s proposals with the brush of being fringe nutters.

    If Alba has any sense it will disassociate itself from such roasters with all possible speed. It’s rather a shame they haven’t done so already as Stu Campbell advised some time ago.

  158. twathater
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Wull and Breeks great comments as usual and as James Che has reminded us numerous times NORMAL INDIGENOUS SCOTS did NOT vote for the 1707 TOU, WE as usual WERE and ARE being sold down the river by a shower of TRAIT ORS whose objective is ANYTHING BUT indy

    Even Sturgeon’s pal Wilson has proposed GIFTING england billions in subsidies over decades to soften their TRAUMA at losing the revenue from oil, with no thought to the billions that have been STOLEN and continue to be stolen for investment in the south , whilst OUR own families with kids and pensioners have to choose whether to eat food OR heat their homes in the cold north

    Unfortunately SCOTLAND HAS HAD and STILL HAS an abundance of TRAIT ORS willing and eager to SELL out their country, no NATIVISM or BLOOD AND SOIL patriotism for them it is ALL about their OWN enrichment, their own self esteem and their own self aggrandisement , BLOOD , SOIL , NATIONALITY or PATRIOTISM is FREELY disposed of to ANYONE it is worthless to a world citizen proponent

  159. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    I often wonder how many of the posters on here would readily accept an independent Scotland, starting next week, with Nicola and her incompetents in charge of everything!
    This going against the wishes of the majority of their fellow countrymen/women!
    No doubt they would try and justify this action because of an abused Treaty of Union which occurred hundreds of years ago. The majority of their countrymen/women, of course, have no idea what this is nor do they even care.
    I will be shocked if an independence referendum takes place in 2023. Mrs Murrell has many faults but she is not stupid. She will not call a referendum knowing that she will lose. This would place her in a position where she may have to ‘fall on her sword’, just like Salmond did, with the loss of her salary, benefits and power.
    It is perfectly obvious that, correctly, Scotland wants nothing to do with Bunter and the Tory’s but nothing else is clear.
    No doubt the 8 page? comic, recently produced for those who need to be told what to think, will try and provide some clarification but I will be surprised if there is even an attempt to try and answer the many difficult questions that have to be asked and solutions found.
    I am in the camp which wants the current SNP rooted out en masse. They have had umpteen chances and blew them all, preferring to enrich themselves.
    Salmond has previously stated that he has ‘the dirt’ on Nicola to cripple her. Where is it? He is not getting any younger!
    It would appear that there are many different kinds of ‘Nationalists’. If left long enough each faction will destroy each other, as can be evidenced from perusing the posts on here.
    Scotland and Independence is rudderless at the present time.

  160. John Main
    Ignored
    says:

    @RepublicOfScotland 2:39 pm

    So let me summarise your post, just like I learned to in school, to show my understanding.

    Repeated overwhelming majorities for the SNP, both at WM and at HR, over decades, have achieved the square root of heehaw in progress towards independence.

    So now it’s time for a new, radical change, … drum roll … it’s time to NOT vote for SNP majorities any more. Yup, that will fast-track Indy for sure. And you accuse me of being naive?!? Jeezo, for the second time, what you smoking?

    I suggest you read up on the genesis of the Labour Party. A political party that came from ordinary people, that sacrificed to put many ordinary people into WM, in pursuit of policies that reflected the wishes and needs of ordinary people. A people’s party that took on the elites and won repeatedly, right up to the point where it was infiltrated and destroyed from within.

    Don’t tell me that political change comes only top-down from the elites. Our history, not to mention examples like Solidarity and the people’s movements currently springing up throughout Europe, prove you wrong.

  161. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “MORE than half of voters want Nicola Sturgeon to stay as First Minister for the next five years, a poll has suggested.
    The Panelbase survey of 2038 voters found that 52% would prefer Sturgeon to remain in post for the rest of the parliamentary term until 2026.”

    No doubt the Sturgeon fanzine aka the National newspaper will be pleased with this, afterall Sturgeon is helping to fund it with Scottish taxpayers money.

    https://archive.md/IM5RW#selection-530.1-1532.0

    I see this report in a similar fashion as to the hysteria surrounding the arrival of Barack Obama at the COP26, in which he was cheered and applauded, why I’ll never know, he holds the unenviable of being POTUS longest at war his entire two-terms, and to be honest he didn’t really achieve much of any note whilst in office, the same can be said of Sturgeon.

    Its all about carefully managing their image that fools the public into believing that good in office.

  162. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Well done to Hibs

    Lol

  163. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Chas 5:49pm
    A few articles in the Sunday Times saying much the same. One of the articles was very revealing. 52% Of Scot voters want Nicola to stay, until 2026. A Panel base poll of over 2000. So statistical significant, similar to Stus poll. Why?. Well what did the Sunday Times not say?. Nicola has moved against anybody that was gaining traction as a potential challenger. I can give you chapter and verse, so much for investigative journalism. Not even a mention. I was taught that the essence of a great leader was their ability to plan their succession. Head of a School Department, Head of a Business Unit, Head of a Council, CEO of a footsie 100 company etc etc. Same rule applies. On that measure Nicola is a poor leader.

  164. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    John Main @5.55pm.

    Apart from one or two SNP MSPs and MPs the rest have stayed remarkably quiet on the nose dive the party has taken on independence, the GRA HCB etc, why is that?

    Well one or two might be waiting for the right moment to say something but the rest are nothing more than a bunch of self-serving troughers, far too spineless and gutless to speak out for what’s right, afraid that Sturgeon might shove them off the gravy train.

    the ones that have spoken out including Joan McAlpine and Joanna Cherry, have had death threats and even threats from their won party officials aimed at them, Joanna Cherry is of being threatened with being forced out the party, and Sturgeon who preaches about fairness, equality and women’s rights has sat back and allowed the witch hunt of Joanna Cherry to continue without intervention.

    Then of course there’s the fitting up of Salmond with only a couple of SNP MPs actually speaking up about it, they eventually ditched the party for the Alba party, and who could blame them.

    Of course we have the terrible travesty of justice with regards to Craig Murray, (Keith Brown has done nothing to forward his release) the COPFS, Sturgeons witchfinder generals office doing their best to imprison the man, and succeeding, and then there’s Mark Hirst, David Lewellyn, Marion Millar, Manni Singh, and the asking Westminster to make outside Holyrood off limits to protestors, possibly after Sturgeon heard 500 women protest outside a few days before.

    Half a dozen or so MSPs saw what was happening pre-2021 Scottish elections, and stood down before May’s elections, I can’t recall one of them since whistleblowing on what’s actually going on within the party that’s made it rotten to its core.

    And you think the SNP will be the vehicle that leads us to independence, like I said naive.

  165. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Re my 6.22pm comment and the banning of demonstrations outside our Holyrood parliament, the time lapse date to repeal the decision elapsed a few weeks back without one SNP MP speaking out against it in the House of Commons, what does that say about them?

    It speaks volumes to me.

  166. Effigy
    Ignored
    says:

    The BBC loving DRoss the latest delusional Tory Shill.

    Today he is upset at Covid passports for Clubs etc.
    No need he says in spite of the worrying spike in cases.

    There is no proof that vaccinated or not you are no more likely
    to catch or transmit Covid.

    Pity this half whit and the dumb BBC are unable to say why Tory
    England are sacking 10’s thousands of NHS and Care Home staff
    for not having tripe vaccinations?

    Maybe in another life or country the national broadcasting company could ask
    pertinent questions at stating the obvious but then again, I can’t hear any opposition
    nailing this clown.

    Boris leading the way again not wearing a mask in public Idiot !

  167. paul
    Ignored
    says:

    Willie says:
    21 November, 2021 at 9:45 am

    Joanna Cherry as a replacement to Sturgeon would be I think a game changer. The direction of the SNP would change.

    She would of course be a big asset to Alba but for the foregoing reason she would be better remaining in the SNP and becoming leader. …..

    …Far from it, a reinvigorated campaign under new committed and sound leadership with someone like Joanna Cherry, would change the entire political scene.

    That is the long and the short of it, a Hobertson/Hempsie led party would further drain the life, operationally, out of the independence movement.

    Indeed, and in deed, it would be the a great bulwark for the union.

    Hence the wildcard of JC, if you have so determinedly cultivated a subservient culture, what a nightmare it would be for it to fall into enemy hands?

  168. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    Chas says:
    21 November, 2021 at 5:49 pm
    I often wonder how many of the posters on here would readily accept an independent Scotland, starting next week, with Nicola and her incompetents in charge of everything!…

    I said it earlier Chas,… by what authority? The 1998 Scotland Act?

    The “colonial” 1998 Scotland Act is the small ‘c’ constitution of a devolved assembly which grovels before Westminster, and actually broke Scotland’s National Constitution when it ignored the emphatic democratic will of Scotland’s people in 2016.

    The 1998 Scotland Act is an Act of the UK Parliament. In an Independent Scotland, the current SNP “Government” wouldn’t be in control. (I rather suspect some of them would be in the dock, answering for their abject failures, incompetence and corruption.

    The 1998 Scotland Act is NOT the Constitution of our Nation, and has no bearing whatsoever on the Constitutional Sovereignty of Scotland’s people.

    So, if it all started next week, declaring the Treaty of Union breached by Scotland’s unlawful subjugation will bring the Treaty of Union to an end, and until it creates one, Scotland will not have a Government.

    However, I do not think it will happen like that. Before the Union is declared breached, a Grand Constitutional Committee will be assembled which champions Scotland’s Sovereign Constitutional rights in law, and functions as Constitutional Guardian or interim Scottish Government until Scotland can hold it’s first general election as an Independent Nation.

    Thus Holyrood will not be fondly remembered as the vehicle which successfully delivered Scottish Independence. Holyrood will be remembered as Westminster’s last Colonial beachhead from where it tried and failed, to usurp and subjugate Scotland’s sovereign constitution. And, with the honourable exception of Alex Salmond’s government, for nearly 25 years installed one puppet government after another which did whatever it was told, sold out Scotland, and respected the false ascendency of UK Parliamentary sovereignty.

  169. paul
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone else seen ‘Judas and the black messiah’?

    A gruelling topper, in my honest opinion.

  170. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Breeks 7.04 pm

    In the words of Tony Benn: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you”.

    1) “…declaring the Treaty of Union breached by Scotland’s unlawful subjugation will bring the Treaty of Union to an end..”
    Who is doing the declaring in this scenario Breeks and where does their/its authority come from?

    2) “Before the Union is declared breached, a Grand Constitutional Committee will be assembled..”
    Who is on this Committee, who elects them and on what authority?

    3) “Scotland’s Sovereign Constitutional rights in law”
    What are these rights? Where are they defined? Who agreed them? When?

    4) “…functions as Constitutional Guardian..”
    Who/what is this Guardian? How is it appointed/elected? How is accountable?

  171. paul
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    21 November, 2021 at 7:35 pm

    @Breeks 7.04 pm

    In the words of Tony Benn: “What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you”.

    1) “…declaring the Treaty of Union breached by Scotland’s unlawful subjugation will bring the Treaty of Union to an end..”
    Who is doing the declaring in this scenario Breeks and where does their/its authority come from?

    2) “Before the Union is declared breached, a Grand Constitutional Committee will be assembled..”
    Who is on this Committee, who elects them and on what authority?

    3) “Scotland’s Sovereign Constitutional rights in law”
    What are these rights? Where are they defined? Who agreed them? When?

    4) “…functions as Constitutional Guardian..”
    Who/what is this Guardian? How is it appointed/elected? How is accountable?

    Define your terms, please concisely describe what AE considers a gold standard, or what would be be.

    Do not refer to your brodie like previous contributions, give us the real, actionable shit.

  172. Chas
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks

    The last thing I need is a lecture!

    I would politely suggest that we all forget about a 300 year old Treaty of Union, Sovereignty and all the stuff that is beyond the ken and interest of the majority of the Scottish electorate. Only 8/10 people on here are concerned. Laws can be changed without too much trouble especially with a corrupt Government in charge. I refer to both Holyrood and especially Westminster.
    ‘Prescription’ is the period of time that has elapsed, after which. whatever has happened, has happened and cannot be challenged. I think that the passing of over 300 years is more than enough!
    Independence will only be gained through the ballot box, by the majority of the electorate being convinced to vote accordingly. Andy Ellis and others are correct in this respect. Under the present SNP/lentil muncher SG we are miles away from that. Legal ‘niceties’ will simply alienate half of the population, which is divided enough already.
    Sturgeon and her incompetents have to go but they will have to be dragged out kicking and screaming or by the side door in shame. Over to you Alex but remember the judiciary and police are under her thumb.

  173. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Breeks @7.04pm.

    Breeks we don’t even need a grand constitutional committee, as Thatcher said all we need is a majority of indy MPs at Westminster, we send them back up the road to Holyrood and they inturn along with our MSPs (indy majority) declare the union dead and buried.

    The people will have been represented in this because they are the ones who voted in the MSPs/MPs in the first place.

    The union was an illegal construct to begin with, its was built on lies and deceit, and it will continue until we have an indy minded FM with the courage to end it.

  174. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Paul 7.44 pm

    You’re entitled to assert my contributions are “brodie like” but you saying it doesn’t make it any more true. It was a characteristic of the late unlamented CBB of this manor that he spammed every single thread with repetitive, off topic links to secondary goggle links. Anyone without an axe to grind can see that’s not what I’ve been doing, but….surprise surfuckingprise that doesn’t suit your agenda, whatever it is.

    I’ve made my position clear in the contributions above and over many months here. There is no shortcut. So….if the referendum route is frustrated by British nationalist intransigence, or abandoned by the Yes movement/parties as unachievable, then the alternative is plebiscitary elections.

    That needs the SNP/Greens to be “converted” or cleansed of their current leadership and for the Yes movement to coalesce around a clear prospectus – as Alba tried to push for at the last election, as Stu Campbell, Angus McNeil and others advised – that a majority of votes for pro-indy parties is a clear mandate for independence.

    That’s a hell of a lot more than all the others selling their cunning plans for alternatives to a referendum or plebiscitary election have come up with, huh? One might almost think its because they have nothing of substance to contribute. Of course some like robbo are just low voltage sweary trolls. Others like Dotty Dot appear to have no other purpose but police my contributions, while adding nothing of their own.

    And just forbye…I’m not the one making the outlandish claims that independence will happen magically using these undefined extra referendum, extra plebiscitary election, extra parliamentary routes, it’s the zoomer collective here and elsewhere. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Sadly for the lackwits in the claque here they haven’t presented ANY evidence, still less extraordinary evidence.

    I await your contribution with bated breath.

  175. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Andy Ellis 8:19pm
    Which is why I have never linked to any other source. I am looking for insight. We can all do our own research. And I liked Cam B. I am probably in the minority on that score. I am going to ask you again to stand for public office. I believe you are an Independence supporter and have some of the combative competencies required. You had the Daily Mail on your case and survived. Tone down your rhetoric and stand for Alba. I don’t agree with a couple of Albas policies but they are a much better prospect than the SNP. Use your energy and motivation at Alba branch meetings and become a prospective candidate.

  176. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    RoS’s contribution is a great example of not being able to kill bad ideas.

    1) The “Thatcher Principle” of a majority of Scottish Westminster MPs voting for independence being enough for independence doesn’t work anymore. It was before the establishment of Holyrood and the now widely accepted reliance on securing a majority vote in a referendum as the route to independence.

    2) The people won’t have been represented, because they didn’t vote Scottish MPs in on a specific mandate that their vote was plebiscitary. The 2015 Westminster gave the SNP 56 of 59 MPs for 50% of the vote. That wasn’t a mandate for independence, nor did anyone say it was. The same would apply today unless there was a clear vote of > 50%, elected on an explicit platform that a victory for Yes supporting parties was a mandate fro immediate independence.

    3) Nobody sane gives a flying fuck at a rolling donut about the 300 year old treaties: certainly not the international community. The union isn’t continuing because of Sturgeon, it’s continuing because the Yes movement has failed to command a majority and because too many Scots lack the political balls and knowledge to end it.

    RoS’s contributions are a case in point. Either he knows the information above and is pretending it isn’t true, or he actually believes the guff he comes out with, which would tend to explain why he and the moon howlers are such a laughing stock representing the nutter fringe pretending they’re the voices of the people. If it weren’t so pathetic it would almost be funny.

  177. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Tannadice Boy 8.35 pm

    I reckon you probably were/are in a minority with respect to CBB, altho’ he did have his partisans. Interestingly many of those who agreed with me on trying to get him to tone down the volume, frequency and inappropriate off topic nature of his contributions, and when he wouldn’t do so get Stu to kick him in to touch, are now decidedly not on the same side as me. Such is life. The big tent isn’t what it was.

    I’ve no appetite for public office. I have plenty of other things to do which would make it hard to devote the necessary time even if I did have such ambitions however.

    I’ve also got no intention of toning down my rhetoric. If Alba turns out to be a force for good, I’ll support it and perhaps get more involved with it locally. If it ends up being a haven for nativist moon howlers and believers in woo-woo cunning plans I’ll treat it the same as I treat the SNP.

    The jury is still out I think: early days and all that….

  178. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone know anything about the Home Office bussing asylum seekers landing on the Southern English coast ‘500 miles to Scotland’? It seems to be the online Guardian’s/Observer’s no. 1 post at the moment, but I can’t access it?

  179. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Andy Ellis 8:53pm
    Yep one of the things I love about Stu is his defence of free speech. A rarity these days. I would agree with you about Alba. Great conference but for me, yet to establish a coherent narrative and lately been invisible. We get dysfunctional politics because we have the wrong people attracted to it as a career. Some notable exceptions but mainly people that have never cut a real job. I am going to Ross Greer as an example for illustrative purposes. At 27 he thinks he knows more than Greenpeace?. Aged 50. I would enter politics but my wife tells me I am too honest. I will try harder to lie and then maybes..

  180. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s no way Andy Ellis wants an independent Scotland, oh he might have an Alba membership, but then again David Harvie is a known MI5 agent (they don’t retire) and he has a significant position at the COPFS.

    Anyway Mr Ellis has just shot down a route out of this union that Alex Salmond the head of the Alba party has declared viable. He’s also had a pop at the SSRG’s route out of this fetid union. I can’t spell it out any plainer than this.

    Mr Ellis dearly wants a a plebiscite that enfranchises anyone whose set foot in Scotland, or worn a a seeyoujimmy bunnet, knowing fine well that route ends in failure for the yes movement.

    I wonder if his broken record act has won anyone over yet?

  181. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @RoS 9.24 pm

    You couldn’t spell your way out of a P5 Spelling Competition.

    I have my doubts you want an independent Scotland: but then you’re just a snivelling online coward without the courage to even post under your own name.

    Given your fondness for woo woo conspiracy theories and defending Mr Putin, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were actually a Russian bot: you seem about as convincing and as clued up about Scottish politics.

  182. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    As I see it, it’s quite simple. I think I mentioned this a week or three ago.

    Concerning the next Westminster or Holyrood election.

    The pro-independence parties putting forward candidates have in their manifestos that a majority of pro-independence candidates elected will mean that a pro-independence mandate has been created and Scotland’s elected representatives can immediately start discussion on the repeal of the Treaty of Union.

    It’s in the manifestos, so voters can’t say that they didn’t know that they were voting for independence.

    What would the SNP do? If they didn’t adopt the same principle in their manifesto, it would prove that they are not the party to achieve independence. The ball would be in their court.

    All the typing about constitutional assemblies and so on is spurious. The above could achieve independence if the majority of elected MPs or MSPs have declared, in advance of the election, that they are pro-independence and been elected by the electorate.

  183. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Brian Doonthetoon 11:47pm
    Hi Brian

    We did that. How many mandates do the SNP need?. They are the party of Independence. Written in their constitution and all that. I used to tramp the streets of Dundee posting leaflets saying exactly that. I remember one guy that posted at 11pm and won accolades about being a superior volunteer at a SNP branch meeting. I hadn’t the heart to tell him the efficacy of posting leaflets was 3%. Why do that when BBC Scotland is promoting the party line?. They are far more effective. Anyhoo onto more important matters. Another jammy 1 nil victory for United. I hope that supporter pushing an Aberdeen player gets banned for life. That’s not the Dundee United way.

  184. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi Tannadice Boy.

    Although it is #1 in the SNP’s constitution, independence has to be specifically cited in an election manifesto to be watertight. It wasn’t in 2015, 2016, 2017 or 2019.

  185. Tannadice Boy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Brian Doonthetoon 12:18pm
    Hi Brian

    Goodness me I tramped the streets of Dundee for nothing. Got Chris Ashe elected in 2015 though. Never mind we all make mistakes. I regret the money, the time, the resource, and my patience supporting the SNP. I want to take it all back. Convince me that Alba are the vehicle of Independence.

  186. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    “The union isn’t continuing because of Sturgeon, it’s continuing because the Yes movement has failed to command a majority and because too many Scots lack the political balls and knowledge to end it.”

    Victim blaming crap.

  187. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:


    wull says:
    21 November, 2021 at 9:01 pm
    Anyone know anything about the Home Office bussing asylum seekers landing on the Southern English coast ‘500 miles to Scotland’? It seems to be the online Guardian’s/Observer’s no. 1 post at the moment, but I can’t access it?

    Archived link…. https://archive.md/TFDGo

    What a hateful place the UK has become. I say become, but it’s a pretty hateful UK which set out to instigate the wars in Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan, Palestine and Syria, profit from saturating these areas with UK weapons, and indoctrinate parts of these unfortunate populations to turn against their own people, then turn its back on these people when you know they will be treated like collaborators once Western forces abandon them.

    It’s as if there’s a cyclic hatred afflicting the UK, making scapegoats of refugees which they’ve created, treat people abominably, ship the problem off their own doorstep and try to agitate anger and resentment against the same people which they’ve just treated abominably.

    You don’t know which is the more grotesque; the UK’s Foreign Policy or the UK’s Immigration Policy. Frankly, it just seems there is less and less about the United Kingdom that isn’t grotesque and gripped by evil.

    Save yourself Scotland. Have no part in this. We have the power to bring the UK to it’s conclusion and end this. Think about it. Scotland has it in it’s capacity to bring about the last ever “UK” bombing raid.

    Let little England spread it’s malignant warmongering toxicity if it must, but do it under it’s own steam, and live with the consequences. Stop exploiting Scotland and damning us all by association.

  188. paul
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    21 November, 2021 at 8:19 pm

    @Paul 7.44 pm

    You’re entitled to assert my contributions are “brodie like” but you saying it doesn’t make it any more true.

    You cannot be more true or more false, it’s one the other.
    Your repetitive and aggressive posts have a similar unneeded and and unwanted quality, that of the unlamented CB, that of distraction.
    It was a characteristic of the late unlamented CBB of this manor that he spammed every single thread with repetitive, off topic links to secondary goggle links. Anyone without an axe to grind can see that’s not what I’ve been doing, but….surprise surfuckingprise that doesn’t suit your agenda, whatever it is.

    I likened you to cbb, but only in tactics,not form.
    I am flattered you know me so well that you are able to discern my ‘agenda’.
    I will be delighted to learn what it is.

    I’ve made my position clear in the contributions above and over many months here. There is no shortcut. So….if the referendum route is frustrated by British nationalist intransigence, or abandoned by the Yes movement/parties as unachievable, then the alternative is plebiscitary elections.

    Hold the national front page!
    All of AE’s conditions are met!

    That needs the SNP/Greens to be “converted” or cleansed of their current leadership and for the Yes movement to coalesce around a clear prospectus – as Alba tried to push for at the last election, as Stu Campbell, Angus McNeil and others advised – that a majority of votes for pro-indy parties is a clear mandate for independence.

    I am against conversion therapy.

    That’s a hell of a lot more than all the others selling their cunning plans for alternatives to a referendum or plebiscitary election have come up with, huh? One might almost think its because they have nothing of substance to contribute. Of course some like robbo are just low voltage sweary trolls. Others like Dotty Dot appear to have no other purpose but police my contributions, while adding nothing of their own.

    Not as far as I can see.

    And just forbye…I’m not the one making the outlandish claims that independence will happen magically using these undefined extra referendum, extra plebiscitary election, extra parliamentary routes, it’s the zoomer collective here and elsewhere. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Sadly for the lackwits in the claque here they haven’t presented ANY evidence, still less extraordinary evidence.

    Exraordinary claims are always in the service against quite ordinary claims

    I await your contribution with bated breath.

    I wish I felt the same

  189. paul
    Ignored
    says:

    I reaal fucked up th formating there, but those who havve eyes, will see

  190. Breeks
    Ignored
    says:

    The SNP can’t even defend the Constitution of it’s own Party from malignant subversion.

    What makes anyone think they are about to rise up in defence of Scotland’s Sovereign Constitution?

    And I’m not talking about the Trans Taliban infiltrators, I’m talking about the “token” YES supporters who are so gullible they’re content to do nothing to defend Scotland’s rights and interests while Westminster ploughs them under…

  191. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Well today’s the day that Sturgeon the Betrayer and the Tory branch manager in Scotland Douglas Ross go on their poverty safari around Glasgow’s East End.

    Sturgeon challenged Ross to go with her on her photo-shoot jaunt, and take in the poverty and degradation in areas like Glasgow’s Haghill.

    Meanwhile Pete Wishart said on Tory sleaze, the very idea that a place like the House of Lords can be bought for £3 million, is something that appalls the people of this country. Spoken like a true unionist.

  192. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Ian (Scotland won’t stand for it) Blackford, saying that Johnson’s Northern Ireland bridge idea was daft, then adding that the SNP demands the £20 billion that they are entitled to for the proposed bridge.

    The SNP are skint, the 600k (indy funds) disappeared into thin air, okay the £20 billion would be government cash, but would we really trust this SNP government when it comes to cash.

  193. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    There’s a think tank/working group scribbling away now in Scotland, on how to make misogyny a hate crime, now any crime against women is appalling, but I wonder just exactly for who’s benefit they are working on the matter.

    Is it to protect real women or to protect the genderwoowoo women aka men who identify as women when the notion takes them, and allows them into real women and girls safe spaces come the GRA becoming law.

    Justice secretary Keith Brown has said on the matter, the Scottish government will act swiftly on the groups recommendations, which are due to be released next February.

    Brown has been asked to act swiftly by many groups on freeing Craig Murray, however he’s blanked everyone of them.

  194. And Spouse
    Ignored
    says:

    https://99-percent.org/government-response-to-nhs-petition/

    I’ve written to the mighty Drew to say I have signed this petition. It worries me that the petition numbers are so low. It worries me that this is happening under our noses. It worries me that when big pharma takes over then we (if we ever become independent) will never get out of it.

  195. Benhope
    Ignored
    says:

    Tannadice Boy.

    After the assault on the Aberdeen player by the Dundee United fan, I haven`t heard anything from the Dundee United manager, Thomas Court. This is the man who ran onto the pitch in front of the Ross-County fans wearing a t-shirt accusing them of racism. Subsequently the County fans were cleared of any racism.

    A little too quick to condemn other fans perhaps and County and Dons fans will not readily forget !!!

  196. wull
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks, Breeks @ 4.11 a.m., for the link to the Guardian article. I also agree with you that the UK is ever increasingly a force for evil, not good, in the world, and that Scotland’s still being in the UK Union seriously damages our reputation and credibility. All the more reason to get ourselves out of this Union as quickly as possible. To me, it looks like everything could explode very quickly indeed, with war not only in the Middle East but in Europe.

    Once that starts, and increasing ’emergency powers’ begin to be put into force, our already slim chances of getting out of the Union will be postponed indefinitely – which means ‘for ever’.

    Think of a scenario where even just thinking about independence becomes a ‘thought crime’, and a massive one at that. Once the ’emergency’ trigger has been pulled, people can be detained for almost anything, or even nothing at all.

    Imagine a case where even thinking about independence makes you suspected of being not just a criminal, but a potential or actual ‘tractor’ to the British state. Will harbouring such heinous ‘thoughts’ be seen not just as “contrary to the ‘national [i.e. British] interest'”, but even as actual collaboration with ‘the enemy’.

    And how will the present leadership of the Scottish Government and the SNP react to that? Given its record over the past seven (very lean) years, will it fight such a thing tooth and nail? Or will it just cave in, and go along with that?

    In fact, if that ‘enemy’ turns out to be ‘Russia’, you might even imagine that leadership rubbing its hands with glee. Watch out, Alex! What a wonderful chance to concoct some other, even better pretext to get you put away for good. No need for a trial, or a jury, or even a sentence – just indefinite (i.e. never-ending) detention.

    After all, if you are a danger to the state, and thus to all of us, it’s the state that will decide when to detain you, and the state that will decide (or, maybe, never decide) when to release you. Anyone who protests at your detention will also be suspect, and should likewise be detained. There will be no jury to prevent the desired outcome from being brought about this time, and no protest will be possible, from bloggers or anyone else, or even murmurers in the privacy of their own homes.

    What glee, then, to have a second bite at the cherry, having botched up the first one.

    And, yes, while you’re at it, give that cherry a capital letter! Why not include her this time round as well? It would be like killing two birds with one stone, if it is allowed to mix the metaphors.

    Shoot the partridge in the cherry tree, and bring the tree tumbling down with him. And outlaw the whole independence movement as you do so. Get rid of it altogether – axe to tree, scorched earth to the terrain of independence and, to quote a right honourable MP, bayonets to all the wounded. People in red coats would be proud of those who do this, including those who collaborate with it for their own personal gain.

    That scenario almost sounds like science fiction, or political conspiracy theory gone mad. And maybe it is. But isn’t it rather familiar? Has it maybe happened before? And, if so, who says it can’t happen again?

    Given all the things that have happened recently, and all the injustices and malicious prosecutions people seem to have been able to get away with so easily, is it really impossible? Would anyone put anything at all past what ‘the powers that be’ can concoct? And if some people co*ked up their concoction the last time, who is to say that they are not learning from mistakes, and will be more efficient concocters next time?

    As the old saying goes, ‘a stitch-up in time saves nine!’ – or almost!

  197. gregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Given that rotten mainstream media has failed to inform, the public might be interested in this recent study from a top-rated medical journal:

    “Abstract 10712: Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning”:

    https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712

  198. Clavie Cheil
    Ignored
    says:

    Every day the Sturgeon and Transgender Cultists are in charge then every day support for Indy drops.

    Oh and they are now blackmailing us into buying the new interconnected smoke alarms Carbon mono detectors and spending millions to advertise their nasty blackmail campaign. It is simple if you dont buy the expensive shit you dont get house insurance. Well the Transgender Fascists can fuck right off. Get the fuck out of my Country yah anti Indy Fascists.

  199. Grouse Beater
    Ignored
    says:

    “I see you don’t attempt (or even have?) any answers to the questions raised though Gareth. 9.59pm Andy Ellis

    You raised no questions. You are politically illiterate. You only raise laughter.

    Your ‘facts’ are mere opinion, smokescreen unionist waffle endlessly contradictory, muddled, a joke. You have no humility; you dismiss the most erudite informed academics with an arrogant ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’, which is you projecting your inadequacy. You have no base, no foundation, no structure to your outbursts.

    Pleading betrayed and hurt because I reject your approaches, you cite how you supported me against the SNP. You are incapable of learning anything. I was suspicious of you even then for you appeared out of nowhere full of vomit, at odds with everything the SNP stood for. Your name was not proffered as a signatory.

    I have no idea who you are but I can smell a phony.

    You are as I said, a chancer, and will remain so.

  200. holymacmoses
    Ignored
    says:

    Just sit down and take a breath Mr Wings. LOOK what Nicola Sturgeon’s doing now
    https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/nicola-sturgeon-news-indyref2-prospectus-26606271?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

    If the link doesn’t work it says that she’s got 14 civil servants working on the plan for a referendum (since last year – would you believe) and it’s costing the tax payer £200, 000
    Do you think I’d best dust down my party outfit:-)



Comment - please read this page for comment rules. HTML tags like <i> and <b> are permitted. Use paragraph breaks in long comments. DO NOT SIGN YOUR COMMENTS, either with a name or a slogan. If your comment does not appear immediately, DO NOT REPOST IT. Ignore these rules and I WILL KILL YOU WITH HAMMERS.




↑ Top