Nothing Changes Here
One year ago today, Nicola Sturgeon suddenly resigned as First Minister. And what a spectacular 12 months it’s been for the Yes movement since her departure.
That, of course, is a somewhat selective graph.
Because the truth is that it for all her supposed success, influence and power, her stepping down as First Minister made almost no difference to anything. In almost eight years since the Brexit vote, and nine years of her leadership, the views of the Scottish public on the constitution have trundled along inside a very narrow corridor.
Across hundreds of opinion polls conducted in that period, there have been just two occasions when either side has broken the 60% barrier, and the most recent of those was the day before the 2017 UK general election, when the SNP’s vote stayed at home en masse due to the party’s shambolic neither-Arthur-nor-Martha manifesto.
(A powderpuff piece of drivel which alienated two substantial factions of its support by being wishy-washy both on independence and Brexit. With the nation convulsed over both Europe and indy, the SNP chose to frame itself around generic gooey pictures of babies and Nicola Sturgeon doing selfies.)
The party offered voters neither a clear stance on independence (“This election won’t decide whether or not Scotland will become independent”) nor on Europe. It made woolly pledges on “making Scotland’s voice heard” with no very clear indication of what that meant, nor any suggestion of how it would be achieved in a Parliament that was already ignoring the voices of 56 out of 59 Scottish MPs.
It contained nothing to inspire those who wanted Brexit weaponised to secure independence at a time when even the Unionist press was cheering her on for a second referendum, and also annoyed the third of SNP supporters who’d voted Leave and wanted to see Brexit delivered.
And when those people stayed home and the SNP lost 21 seats, Sturgeon panicked, interpreted it as meaning that even her pathetic total capitulation on indy at the key moment had been too aggressive a stance, and made a headlong retreat.
(Whatever became of that fundraiser money? Has anyone heard anything about it?)
And since then, Scotland has been trapped in stasis. A grim succession of ever more epically incompetent UK Prime Ministers (Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss) has come and gone, the UK has been plunged into economic chaos and ravaged by a pandemic – you know the story by now – and still the SNP did nothing and opinion didn’t break out of the Corridor Of Continuity.
(Sure, there were fluctuations within it – Yes held the lead for almost a solid year during the worst of the pandemic, but then No reasserted itself as Sturgeon failed to act and it gradually became clear that the UK’s shambolic handling of COVID hadn’t actually been worse than Scotland’s, ours had just been better presented.)
Stagnation, of course, always favours the status quo. With no momentum, justifications for action fade into history. Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will is now a fait accompli, and loses its political resonance with every passing day as people concern themselves with more immediately pressing issues.
And yet, what the last eight years’ polling shows is that at pretty much ANY point during that time, the SNP could have made any election a de facto referendum and had a coin-flip chance of winning it.
In the last four years, while No has led in the majority of polls there have only been seven occasions where either side has surpassed 55%, and six of those were Yes leads. (All but one of the seven were 56-44, with a single 59-41 for Yes in October 2020.)
It’s abundantly plain that no political events are going to significantly change the figures. If Brexit didn’t do it and COVID didn’t do it and Liz Truss didn’t do it, what will? The Russians invading? So the only way to make anything happen is to force the issue by explicitly turning a vote into an indyref.
The best time for that has already passed while the SNP sat on their thumbs and focused on getting rapists into women’s prisons, but the upside is that the polls show the timing doesn’t really make much difference. Temporary fluctuations would be flattened out by a campaign. It’s still a coinflip, and the most recent polling has Yes ahead anyway.
The SNP could still make that happen at any time they liked – even if they lack the courage for anything as dramatic as dissolving Holyrood and calling a plebiscitary election (which they do), there’s a UK general election happening this year anyway. All it takes is a one-line manifesto.
But they won’t, and the SNP 2024 manifesto will be all but identical to the 2017 one. Their messaging is already making that clear – it’s about “making Scotland’s voice heard” at Westminster (which everyone knows it won’t be no matter what the result – Labour are on course for an epic landslide and even when the SNP had arithmetical leverage in 2017-19 they did absolutely nothing with it) and winning yet another mandate to make demands everyone knows will be ignored.
If the SNP wins as many seats as it did in 2017, we’ll be astonished. Frankly we’ll be very surprised if they get half as many. Goodness knows how far Humza Yousaf will retreat afterwards, just like Nicola Sturgeon did. But then, he can barely see the battlefield with binoculars even as it is.
And in the end, that’s the true meaning of “continuity candidate”. Nothing’s changed in a decade for the indy movement, and as long as people keep voting SNP, nothing will happen for the next one either. So make sure you’re in a comfy seat, readers. Because that’s all the SNP are trying to achieve for themselves.
Support for YES will not change until there is a credible plan for the restoration of Scotland’s full self-government which means that the the political parties stop deferring to Westminster thus compromising our sovereignty and right of self-determination that they claim to be upholding.
Stephen Flynn gave an interview to John Drummond on The TNT Show on Independence Live last week week:
Flynn, leader of the SNP Westminster group of MPs, said:
“Oh yes, absolutely the Scottish people should be sovereign, are sovereign”
before going on to state in the very next sentence:
“Because of the nature of the Union that we have ultimately Parliament is sovereign on these isles”.
So simultaneously he believes the Scottish people are sovereign AND the Westminster Parliament is sovereign!
This clown has obviously never even heard of the Claim of Right (1689) far less understood it.
Scotland – led by numpties:
https://twitter.com/Rogue_74/status/1755375270901473726
The first line of the manifesto has to be Independence for Scotland. Any attempt to ignore or downplay indy will ensure a total collapse of the SNP vote, not due to everyone suddenly becoming yoons but due to apathy.
Good article.
Shame there’s no mention of the flawed and fraudulent process that put our current FM in place.
Just another forgotten episode along the way?
Ah hae ma doots. For any Scot innarested in honesty, probity and accountability in public office, that may well be the most important reality in Scottish politics right now.
The “faithful” are prepared to ignore it because they don’t want yet another scandal. But what about the rest of us?
I would like to see a poll held:
“Does it matter to you that the election process that gave us Humza Yousaf as First Minister was mired in controversy, lies, resignations, secrecy and admissible campaigning practices?”
As pointless voting SNP in the upcoming GE as voting for a unionist party. We should ignore the GE and repurpose our vote instead. Write this message across your ballot paper: #endtheunion.. More here..
“there’s a UK general election happening this year anyway. All it takes is a one-line manifesto.”
Deid richt, Rev.
Tho juist chree wirds wad dae:
“END THE UNION”
You are right, REV, we need to build support for independence. The SNP, both parliamentary party and members, lack the requisite courage to grasp the thistle. That Sturgeon deliberately chose to back the ‘trans’ issue and allowed it to sink independence, in full knowledge that many, many independence-supporting women would feel betrayed was a master stroke, really. From 2015, it effectively corralled independence and opened it in alongside the sheeple bleating that we cannae, we shouldnae, we couldnae. I believe and have always believed that there is something in Nicola Sturgeon that answered the call to deviancy, and it had nothing to do with ‘kindness’.
That aside, many will simply spoil their ballot papers this year because there is nothing for them in the manifestos, and hasn’t been for nine years. HashtagEndtheUnion, Peter Bell’s suggestion would be a mass civil disobedience, but, whatever happens, if the SNP survive this year, it will have to be destroyed completely in 2026 if we are ever to regain our independence. They will continue to block any and all attempts to revive independence. It makes much more sense for the party to be brought low this year so that another party/movement/convention can start to build a new independence consensus in time for 2026 and a Scottish plebiscitary election. Thereafter, no referendum. UDI and resiling of the Treaty so that we have the grounds to negotiate the return of all of our assets and resources. Westminster will try to keep as many of them as it can get away with, so we need to be prepared and, to that end, the work done by SALVO and Liberation will be crucial.
Even if the SNP had the desire for independence right now, they simple can’t dissolve Holyrood and campaign for it (yes, I know they can technically).
The problem is that they don’t have a pot to p*ss in. They can’t afford a campaign and would have to ask for donations. This will prove that the £600k was never ring-fenced and has been spent.
What’s with “it” ? 🙂
Feck!
“Does it matter to you that the election process that gave us Humza Yousaf as First Minister was mired in controversy, lies, resignations, secrecy and inadmissible campaigning practices?”
I am astonished that you managed not to swear.
It is a litany of failure, after failure. Rinse and repeat. With no change of personnel to try to improve things (i.e. Shirley Anne disaster)
Sturgeon’s cabal, and that now includes every single MP and MSP in her party – even the ones she hates, are responsible for this. They could have challenged her or her creature, but they chose not to.
They deserve all that’s coming.
I think it will take yet another term of the English parties ruining Holyrood before enough folk wake up and join Alba or ISP. I sincerely hope I am wrong.
Again this is entirely the fault of Sturgeon and her enormous, culpable, cabal.
@ Alf Baird says: 15 February, 2024 at 1:45 pm
Fit aboot these chree wirds:
“FECK AFF ENGLAND”
Haha, just my little joke.
I’m not thinking many rational Scots are going to vote for soundbites, not if it’s going to hit them in the pockets, as it surely will with the total lack of planning evidenced by a three-word manifesto.
I wonder if rational Scots make up the majority, or a minority.
Nurturing grievance to secure that comfortable, British state sinecure (and the £1.3m pa in Short money that bankrolls Jackson’s Entry) is the only game in town.
The SNP are the Irish Parliamentary Party of the 21st Century. Opportunities for change are actively spurned.
Voters resident in Scotland voted Remain by a 24% margin of victory in 2015 (the margin of victory among autochthonous Scots would be c. 28%). Such a differential in a binary plebiscite is remarkable these days.
This should have been used to leverage some advantage. Robin McAlpine has heard from more than one source in the Civil Service that in advance of her first, post Brexit vote meeting with Nicola Sturgeon, Theresa May had her top Civil Servants prepare a dossier of “compromise positions”. At the opening of the meeting, Sturgeon stamped her wee feet and squeemed “No Brexit”. The potential compromises were removed from the table without ever being examined.
As the old game show host used to say, “let’s see what you could have won”.
The bespoke Brexit deal arranged for Northern Ireland has 4 Customs, Ports of Entry (Belfast Port, Larne Ferry Terminal, one of the Belfast airports & Warrenpoint Container Terminal). One Port of Entry per 0.475m people.
A combined Northern Ireland / Scotland entity would be entitled (on a pro rata basis) 15.6 Ports of Entry.
Northern Ireland would only require 3 (Larne only handles Scottish traffic) leaving 12 PoE.
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen & Prestwick airports combined with one rail freight terminal leaves the Solway / Tweed border with 7 potential PoE. We are only concerned here with commercial freight traffic and there ain’t that many HGV suitable crossing points on the border.
Joining Northern Ireland in a Brexit “halfway house” would have had genuine commercial advantages and would have psychologically prepared the “faint hearts” for the hard border that would be necessary for independence (a hard border in such circumstances is no substantive inconvenience at all).
From a Westminster perspective, it could have assisted with their problems with the DUP (although you never can tell with that lot).
Had Westminster rebutted this proposal the propaganda value would be immense and support for independence would substantively and permanently increase.
An entirely feasible solution and the SNP couldn’t even arrange this. Was Sturgeon’s display of petulance spontaneous or was it calculated? Impossible to say, but A hae ma suspicions.
Feck! John Main is that the only thing that bothers you?
Want me to make a list of the things that bother me.
Humza Yousaf is the least of it.
An independent Scotland ?
2016 – why (??), who (SNP ??), how (plebiscite ??), when (2016/17 ??)
2024 – why (?* uncertainty due to who), who (? not Sturgeonist SNP), how (plebiscite ??), when (??but check Nostradamus).
* A poll and an actual vote can differ hugely. Competence matters. Just ask Neil Kinnock.
So predictable
1. Humza’s illegal election
2. Show me the money
Scotland wasn’t ignored when it came to furlough or vaccination. In fact Scotland gets more than its fair share from central government. Very rarely ignored anymore than say Liverpool or Bradford.
Doesn’t matter if you hold a plebiscitary referendum, if Westminster say no then that is that.
Scotland will be no better off with Independence, in fact initially worse off for a pretty long time. This is why when push comes to shove like in 2014 No wins out.
Just say it as it is ‘we want independence because we just do’ and cut the bullshit about doing things better because you won’t. It will be the same as it ever was.
The only thing worse than a Westminster plant is a Westminster plant that doesn’t know that’s what they are.
Steven @ 14.14
Just the subjective view of an old pensioner, Steve, however, for me, the best government I have experienced in nearly 80 years was that presided over by Mr Salmond from 2007-2014.
The degree of competence displayed by him overall, the betterment in local and national services and the non confrontational manner (never better displayed than during his initial leading of a minority administration) in which he led this nation succeeded in taking support for independence amongst the electorate from somewhere around 25-30% (please forgive me if my percentages are slightly out, I’m an old guy) to a hotly disputed referendum result.
Which suggests, to me at least, that an awful lot of Scots felt as I do, that things were definitely improving and, given independence, could have continued on that course.
Not to mention that, by implication at least, many of our younger generation felt that they had, to coin a phrase, “Been shown not only the money, but a route to a better, fairer, society”.
Steven – away and lie in yer water;
In 2022-23 Scotland raised £87.5bn in tax which goes directly to Westminster. However, the Scottish Government only received a budget back of £59.7bn, a difference of £27.8bn staying in London.
64% of revenue is reserved to London and 36% devolved to Edinburgh. While 41% of expenditure is reserved to London and 59% is devolved to Edinburgh.
The Scottish Government can borrow £3 billion for capital expenditure in the term of a parliament with the annual limit for 2023/24 set at £450 million. Resource borrowing is set at £500 million annually. The Scottish Government legally can NOT overspend its budget outside of the agreed borrowing limits, which leads me to my next point.
It was reported for 2022/23 Scotland had a deficit of £19.1bn. The media and unionist politicians mistakenly or deliberately report this as Scot Gov overspending. However, it is a lie. There are some very interesting figures within Scotlands ‘deficit’, for example: the figure of £9.1bn under the name of ‘Reserved public sector debt interest’ is Westminster debt being allocated to Scotland; debt Scotland had no part in creating or spending. That is 47.6% of Scotlands ‘deficit’, almost half is being created by debt loading from Westminster. If this debt was not being allocated to Scotland, the nation’s deficit would go down from 9% of GDP to 4.7%.
I would like to note another interesting point: this debt Scotland is allocated actually stems from the 1707 Union. One of the terms was that Scotland would be paid £398,085 to offset Scotland being allocated a share of England’s debt for all of time. That in 2021 prices is £71,260,439 million. As you can see, that was not nearly enough to offset the burden on Scotland of England’s debt, Scotland has paid more than £9 billion more in one year on their neighbours debt than the whole amount that was supposed to offset it forever.
Scotland is also allocated £4.5 billion for defence, but the UK government only spends £1.9bn on defence in Scotland. £2.6bn of Scotland’s money is being spent outside of Scotland, where it would better be used in the country to bolster the nation’s defence.
Let’s look at this statement: Andrew Bowie, Tory MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine admitted in an interview for the BBC “We now tax oil and gas companies 75% on their profits that they make, that 75% tax has gone towards paying for half of everybody in this country’s energy bills over the past winter. Oil and gas is important and it will be with us for the next 25-30 years.”
How can a nation of 5.5 million that has 90% of the UK’s oil reserves and roughly 60-65% of the gas reserves subsidise 34 million peoples energy bills for a whole winter but run a deficit and apparently be subsidised by its southern neighbour? The answer is; it can’t. Someone is lying: it’s the establishment in our neighbour’s capital that benefits tremendously by having Scotland shackled to it.
Unless there’s some revelations/prosecutions (stop laughing at the back) which are absolute show-stoppers its going to take at least 10 years before the SNP stops being “relevant” to people.
So add on another 6-10 years to that for another party* to build enough support on the single issue of indy and it’ll be 2040 next time there’s a referendum.
*it won’t be Alba, I’m a member but if it was going to happen quicker then there would be signs of it now. The competent people are all too old for the slog ahead and fucktards like James Kelly are getting elected now, which doesn’t bode well.
Remember last year when we were discussing music for the camper van? Here’s one, Lola Vs Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One by The Kinks.
Kelly Given has a great article in the national extolling Nicola’s tallents.
It is the funniest thing you will read this side if the election.
I have £20 on them getting less than 20 seats at the moment so i am thinking how to spend the winnings. Any suggestions.
The SNP…
Like the headless chicken, the body of the SNP runs around the farmyard as though nothing has happened.
Like the headless chicken, the head of the SNP keeps blinking its eyes and opening and closing its mouth to no effect.
Like the headless chicken, the SNP is dead, and like the headless chicken, it just doesn’t know it…
James
Excellent post.. Cheers!
Steven
“Scotland wasn’t ignored when it came to furlough or vaccination.”
That is false along with the rest of your guff.
I distincly remember Sunak telling the SNP to go fund furlough themselves if they wished to prolong lockdown. They were eating out to help out & fck Scotland if they didn’t follow their disastrous lead. (Where was Scotland supposed to furnish the extra cash from? Fresh air?)
Also, not to provide the Scots any PPE either & as for the vaccines – is that the ones Scotland PURCHASED as a group discount between nations buying in bulk just as other nations did in the EU? i.e Purchasing power.
Aww, diddums. Do you think Scots received furlough & vaccines for free out the goodness of Bojos heart? You should’ve paid a wee bit more attention to him in parliament as he scoffed & spaffed the Scots should have all been grateful to him & been on their knees thanking the Union while hinting greatly he’d loved to have withheld it until we paid that wanker homage.
It didn’t have the result he expected as his minions took to twitter & were roasted.
If yoons aren’t scared of a ref then why don’t they agree to one? Lol
As for Westminster saying no to any result – what they going to do? Furnish a receipt of when, where & to whom they purchased Scotlands territory exactly? Brilliant, we’d all like to see the receipts & proof of that ever happening.
@ Vivian O’Blivion says: 15 February, 2024 at 2:06 pm
With respect, you’re still fighting yesterday’s battles.
I’m of the opinion that there’s plenty of Scots voters who have changed the record from “We wus taken oot o the EU against oor will” to “Phew, we dodged a bullet there”.
I’m of the opinion that as the EU continues to morph into something quite dissimilar to what it was a decade ago, the number of Scots voters glad to be out of it will continue to increase.
Politics is obviously broken.
With the collapsing financial system and totally degraded democracies (in the West), things must change.
Some big crisis is obviously coming; war?, another flu?, space aliens?
Anything to distract the voters, who are waking up, and will spoil the elite’s plans, given half a chance.
Out of the wreckage, we have to be ready to exploit the opportunities.
50%+ surely must be easy.
If political parties won’t supply a more radical vision, then we just have to stop funding them and assisting by our compliance, and do it for ourselves.
Develop unofficial economies, dump surveillance tech, live off grid as much as possible.
Without our self policing, even by a sizeable minority, their system is quickly overloaded.
good comment from james on the standard-practice accountancy fiddling which goes on; this is so egregious it belongs in the “BIG LIE” category of propaganda, but it comes with a strong cognitive dissonance, Scotland being too poor to go on its own, but is also propping up the UK, and anglo efforts to keep us onboard – which make them “poorer”, a perverse from of pathological altruism, a quality the anglo is not known for, nor has ever demonstrated in his history (piracy, monasteries, india, slave trade, gold/diamonds in south africe – all incidental, a kind of “bob a job” for the world)
any serious nationalist would have put in a long term analysis unit to draw up a fair set of accounts to make the economic case (also for reparations), but this was never done.
– relating to last article, of course NHS/housing/economy/money is what people worry about, and are right to; the nationalist must then present independence as being the overarching solution to all of these problems, with copious evidence from comparative studies, e.g. the EFTA nations (the unionist will try to claim the opposite) – but the basic fact is, from day one, if you are having the full tax return flowing through your economy and not siphoned off to the south east of anglo land, you have to be better off; it would take unheralded world beating moronicity or high intelligence sabotage to do otherwise. This is without doing anything actually clever, that will come afterwards, hopefully.
Any competent nationalist politician should be able to make the point of the – impossibility – of “solving” the housing/economy/cost of living, problem while in a “union” which is setup to exclusively cater for the south of England. Impossible!
instead we get empty slogans
“equality” – easy to achieve, for we will all be equal at the bottom, with nothing
“opportunity” – for who, exactly? Me and my grifter gang?
“community” – which one, the asian business community perhaps
the deep problem for us is that the Murrells are “gone”, but not removed, the police “investigations” being aimed at them, slower, and less in earnest than a WWF “smackdown”.
I’d vote for any party that abstains from taking their seats in that rancid corrupt anti-Scots shithole called westminster. How embarrassing worldwide would that be for the ‘mother of all parliaments’ if a majority of independence minded mp’s took that step. A massively bigger impact than sending a party to westminster whose presence will give legitimacy to be denigrated, insulted, and totally irrelevant to the tory/liebor government of the day who is in power.When will you ever wake TFU Scotland.
@Bobbyp 5:33pm
Agreed. Short Money is the SNP’s thirty pieces of silver.
It is unbelievable that we still have supposed Scots (Yeh right) thinking that they can come on to WOS and decry and deride the Scottish Nonce Party’s grossly incompetent governance of Scotland and convince themselves that they are selling the benefit of the union to us doubters, if Steven had any intelligence or even interest he would realise if he perused the comments that 99.99 percent of commenters and posts DESPISE the corrupt and venal nonce party and are desperate that police Scotland do no further damage to Scottish justice by ignoring their blatant criminality
Steven is another proud Scot BRIT that believes everything the WM scum, the lying bbc and their fellow broadcasters, the off shore tax evading and avoiding newspapers say about Scotland, Steven also conflates independence and shite governance by the nonce party and lying politicians
Steven get aff yer knees stand up and do some research, don’t listen to the BAD people, SCOTLAND CAN DO IT
A timely piece, but then the yoons have time on their side. They know the movement is, if not in becalmed, largely paddling round in circles.
The only really encouraging sign is that support for independence HAS risen, even as the SNP commits electoral seppuku. We should of course gladly sit by their sides and hand them the tanto to finish the job.
Perhaps the phenomenon keenly awaited by John Main and others has already begun? If support for independence is now in the low to mid 50’s %, that suggests that a significant number of former No voters (or at least folk who were put off voting Yes in 2014 by “big ticket” Project Fear attack points about money, EU membership and currency) have switched.
They are now convinced that the cost benefit analysis favours taking the risks of independence rather than banking on the previous certainties of unionism.
Call me old fashioned but I very much doubt we’ll attract more “persuadables” by leading with calls for franchise restriction, staying outside NATO and the EU, and cosying up with Uncle Vlad, or advocating the Socialist Republic of Brigadoon.
If the REV fails in his jobsearch, despite the obviously strong nature of his application, he could go for one of these :
https://www.myjobscotland.gov.uk/councils/south-lanarkshire/jobs/sla12525-learning-organisational-development-diversity-manager-366773
the modern day woke equivalent of the mafia no-show; and remember
“As a user of the disability confident scheme, we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum behaviour requirements for the position.”
remember at interview to bring up the horrendous blackface antics which scandalised t in the park all those years ago, and the notorious burnbank pogroms where special police units comprising accies fans shot women and children behind morrisons. Oy Vey!
This is a beauty, for winger “anton decadent”
https://www.myjobscotland.gov.uk/organisations/govanhill-housing-association/jobs/housing-officer-367294
– where he can assume extraordinary legal powers to sweep the scum off the streets.
“The post will particularly cover a variety of tenancy services duties including … dealing with anti-social behaviour and tenancy and estate management.”
@John Main
I’m of the opinion that as the EU continues to morph into something quite dissimilar to what it was a decade ago, the number of Scots voters glad to be out of it will continue to increase.
Mebbe aye, mebbe naw. I think you’re letting your instictive, one might almost say kneejerk, Euroscepticism cloud your judgement. It’s overwhelmingly likely that post indy, the overwhelming majority of Scots will still be firmly pro-EU (just as they will be firmly pro NATO).
If you know of figures showing otherwise, do tell!
Of course things might change in coming years, and there’s no certainty that membership will be automatic or easy. However given current trends, there’s absolutely nothing in it for the EU to make Scottish accession anything other than fast and as painless as possible, particularly in the event of a second Trump presidency and a rise in isolationism.
Genocide John
You miss the point.
Scotland was in a strong position to leverage at least something from Westminster. Sturgeon blew it. Preferring to maintain her own selfish position on the gravy train above her Indy mandate & Remain voters.
It was the SNP who took Scotland out of the EU.
Just as Dumbza did over the Stone of Destiny. If an adulterous man child wanted to sit his lard arse on it then what’s in it for us should’ve been top of the agenda? Nah, off he went handing it over for fck all but a bill for the costs.
How is NI doing? That wee annexed part of Ireland. Have they crashed & burned yet with the deal they received?
EU will soon wise up & return to normal. Germany & France won’t put up with their shit for much longer. 404 is winning all the prizes & they’re not even a member LOLz
That also blows the myth Scotland wouldn’t be welcome in the EU. The most corrupt & antisemitic country is receiving preferential treatment & fast tracked in with a huge arsenal of hardware & billions in the bank to buy yachts.
A great advocate of “Show you the money” eh? Yours & half the EUs is busy clinking off a jetty in the Med..lol
https://archive.is/s0uZk
Derek Mackay to launch pro-independence GERS report alternative
That sounded interesting but then whoosh Derek Mackay was gone.
Suspicious?
Bobbyp.
The only one that I know is the ISP, they are a indy party for abstentionism at Westminster.
For me abstentionism is one of the first steps to ditching the union, sending Scottish MPs to Westminster only legitimises that foreign parliament and it gives it credibility, for Scottish MPs making a good living in England comes before the welfare of our nation and independence.
Dan!
Badger alert here!
https://wingsoverscotland.com/nothing-changes-here/comment-page-1/#comment-2824256
Just seen the SNP party political broadcast tonight.
Comprised 3 first year drama actresses masquerading as members of the public reading out hypothetical conversations then Yousaf claiming all the social welfare benefits (very welcome I would add) are the result of having a strong voice in Westminster..
Weren’t they delivered by Holyrood – before the SNP allowed themselves to be hi-hacked into focussing on pet projects, indeed all before Yousaf was FM..
Independence? Never mentioned once, so much for this GE being for Independence then eh?
Hmmmmm..
@Confused, thanks for the laugh, appreciated. The “effective void management” part sounds interesting but I am hoping for a position as a self facilitating media node.
Confused & Ruby
“any serious nationalist would have put in a long term analysis unit to draw up a fair set of accounts to make the economic case (also for reparations), but this was never done.”
Ash Regan was going to do that too. (Her interview with Kevin McKenna)
Also putting people in their correct portfolio’s.
& Also going to have an inquiry into the bargain basement Scotwind sale – confidentiality clauses permitting.
Suspicious? Aye, she came last FFS..
The membership should have been thoroughly checked. Forbes threw Ash under a bus not standing with her on that which is also suspicious.
I’m assuming support for independence being in the 50’s is amongst voters currently living in Scotland.
Unless you restrict the franchise to only voters living in Scotland then that figure is meaningless.
This has been said 100’s of times already but what the hell I’ll give it another go.
It’s very curious that people who move here from England & those with holiday homes etc always vote NO.
What are the financial benefits for England of having Scotland in their Union. Why so keen to keep us in their Union?
If you could get an answer to that question then the ‘show us the money’ question may also be answered.
I don’t know if it is possible to get a clear picture of Scotland’s finances from Westminster. Probably not.
Did Katie Forbes take up where Derek MacKay left off with the pro-indy Gers report?
Ten years too long.
Sooner the SNP are gone the better. It’s as simple as that. The SNP have played us for fools. Missed opportunity after opportunity. Deliberate too. Sold the jerseys. Taken the other side’s money.
Ten years, yes ten long years. But you know what, despite all the SNP have done to undermine independence, they have not dented support for independence.
That has not gone away, but the SNP will.
@Young Lochinvar 6:41pm
I watched the SNP political broadcast as well. Not a single white adult male on show. A risky strategy to ignore half the population. And Grannies are the only ones that look care for their grandchildren?. Having just done a 10 hour shift today I can tell you that’s not the case. Humza is indeed the continuity candidate the destructive tail of Sturgeons divisive legacy continues.
https://archive.is/4v4Cy
Show me the money: exclusive interview with Derek Mackay on Scotland’s budget
“I will publish that assessment next time we publish the GERS figures because I’m so convinced with the economic argument of Scotland. I think it needs the exposure it deserves, rather than the usual knockabout that Scotland’s too poor, too wee to be independent, we’ve absolutely got what it takes.
“We’ll start it off on the basis of what we have right now and then say what the opportunities would be if we were to, say, grow particular sectors or make particular decisions, but I could already say to you right now that if we weren’t to invest in nuclear weapons that’s £200 billion that we could use to do other things.
It would have been interesting to see where he would have gone with this.
Patrick Grady still in a job but Derek MacKay isn’t. Suspicous?
Andy Ellis
I don’t think you’re being fair in dismissing my opposition to Scottish EU membership as “knee jerk”.
My opposition starts from the principled position that as there are no truly independent countries in the EU, it is a no-brainer to point out that no Scottish Indy supporter should want to be in the EU.
Of course, the ability to believe a number of contradictory things on here is almost a requirement.
I think you have it entirely the wrong way about on Trump & US isolationalism. Plenty of commentators believe the EU and Europe/NATO are getting the kick up the erse they have long needed. So airy-fairy progressive policies and cuddly pacifist posturing are going out the window. Borders are getting enforced, and arms spending is being ramped up. These trends will only increase if Trump gets in.
So, from my perspective, the EU is morphing into more the kind of entity I would like it to be! Causing me to keep my hostility under constant review.
Whereas your traditional ScotNat peacenik, if she is paying attention, will be increasingly finding the EU not to their taste. It will be quite impossible for a future iScotland to join the EU and not get sucked into the war-like positioning and spending the entire bloc is having to adopt. As a wealthy wee country, we will have to cough up for our membership in order to support these initiatives.
I don’t think the average pro-EU Scot, fondly reminiscing about how things were a decade ago, has been paying attention. A rude shock awaits.
As for the EU pandering to Scottish exceptionalism and rushing us in, if they do, it will be because of what they stand to gain from us – oil, energy, lebensraum, somewhere to diversify their nuclear weapons storage.
This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody. These are exactly the advantages WM has been extracting!
Young Lochinvar @ 6:41 pm
“Comprised 3 first year drama actresses masquerading as members of the public”
All from the Glasgow area too, judging by the accents.
On the subject of social welfare benefits, these are rather theoretical now in that ‘free’ health and dental care is fine so long as there is sufficient capacity in the system, which there isn’t, more especially with significant added demand constantly moving in from rest-UK.
Same with ‘free’ higher education which is capped so that relatively few Scots can gain access, whilst most places are allocated to paying students from outside Scotland, especially at the ‘elites’.
“money!” … WTF
Scotgov would be better served by hiring-in outsiders, with no skin in the game, like anti-corporate fraud investigators from Kroll – “Scotland has been robbed!” – then you set them loose to find the money. Expensive, but cheap, much cheaper than a ferry, for example.
Since the referendum failed, wingers must start the long march through the institutions, and this is why I am trying to get everyone a “joab”. Power everywhere is hierarchical and structured as a network; if you get enough of “your guys” in the right place, you can control the whole thing, democracy and numbers be damned (how do you think our enemies, the lobbies, the pressure groups, work).
We need our guys at GCHQ and the Cabinet Office.
Wings as, say, an … underground boxing club, might work.
– I would bet on ruby.
” Call me old fashioned but I very much doubt we’ll attract more “persuadables” by leading with calls for franchise restriction, staying outside NATO and the EU, and cosying up with Uncle Vlad, or advocating the Socialist Republic of Brigadoon. ” .
You’re old fashioned , Mr E .
Or maybe not so much ” old ” fashioned as fashioned from a hefty dollop of Guardian * Newspapers * made into soggy paper mache .
It’s not 1997 , ” Things ” didn’t ” …. only get better ” : they got much , much worse . The Cold War ended a while back too
Staying inside U.S.T.O & joining W.E.F.E.U would IMO be monumental missteps , but , ultimately , if it was the majority will of an * Independent * Scotland ( after referenda on these issues ) I could live with that .
Hopefully by the time Scotland achieves Independence there will a more mature/realistic attitude to countries like * ussia n *hina , a genuine attempt to understand how things look to them . their legitimate Security concerns – remind me again which country has the most military bases globally – and an equally genuine attempt to find common ground . And common humanity .
As for keeping the exact franchise as 2014 ? That is just moronic self-harm . In fact , gambling the destiny of our country on another Westminster * sanctioned * referendum , with all the scope for * interference * that permits , is to almost guarantee the same result as last time . Defeat .
This matter can , and will , only be decided in Scotland . If * we * continue to defer to WM ie the Brit State , Independence will never be realised .
In my opinion the only credible route for independence is with Alba and ISP, both of whom if candidates win MP seats will take Sinn Fein stance of not sitting in Westminster but taking up in Edinburgh.
It then has to follow they take a majority of Holyrood seats .
Alba manifesto already covers publicite elections on an Independence stance.
I can’t understand why no one else on here gets behind them, or are many still hoping forlornly for SNP revival.
Good luck with that nightmare.
“it’s about making Scotland’s voice heard at Westminster which everyone knows it won’t be no matter what the result”
Correct! And these figures confirm that. The figures are from 2014 but one or two boundary changes since then are not sufficient enough to create any real difference to Scotland:
Representation at Westminster:
London 73 MPs
South of England 139 MPs
The Midlands 105 MPs
East of England 112 MPs
North of England 104 MPs
Scotland 59 MPs
Wales 40 MPs
NI 18 MPs
Scotland, your Westminster vote isn’t even worth the paper it’s written on. The country of Scotland within Westminster’s system can be outvoted at any time on any issue by just one of England’s regions. The country of Scotland’s power within that system is even less than that of any one of those regions. Scotland’s representation has been cut even further since 2014. And it has been getting reduced for decades.
Confused has got me a joab!
I would be happy to do the books & take the coats but no boxing or unboxing.
Doing the books must be the easiest job in the world.
A cloakroom job is great. Take the coats sit around for 2-3 hours watching the coats while reading ‘Palahniuk’s Fight Club’ then put the wee saucer out add to couple of £1 coins get the coats and thank everyone for the £1 tip.
Thanks for the joab!
I have read ‘Palahniuk’s Fight Club’ but I have read a fair number of romance novels that included a Fight Club usually on a Friday night. I won’t tell you the secrets about the fight clubs in romance novels.
Wings underground boxers fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
@ Robert Hughes says: 15 February, 2024 at 8:03 pm
Hopefully by the time Scotland achieves Independence there will a more mature/realistic attitude to countries like * ussia n *hina
Can’t wait, Bob.
A more mature/realistic attitude to Russtiland will involve accepting that after annexing a peninsula and oblast or two, they reckoned that the feeble murmurs in response would enable them to grab a huge, rich country of 45 million free folk. Looks like that message has yet to sink in with you Bob, but WTF, it’s only been two years eh?
As to the Covid Spreaders. A more mature/realistic attitude to them will require acknowledgment that they cooked up Covid in a lab, and allowed it to be unleashed on the entire world, killing millions, injuring hundreds of millions and costing us all trillions, and they have yet to even say “Sollee!”.
Looks like that’s another concept you’re struggling to get yer heid around.
If iScotland is going to practise heroic naivety of the magnitude you seem to possess, best we be prepared to wait a wee while yet.
We need our own Scottish Central bank and currency. The Alba Party released an old document called, starting from scratch. Perhaps someone can share it.
Were paying nothing as we leave. Alex Salmond will free Scotland. It’s like he’s got a superpower to predict the future. He knows the way forward. I believe in him. The ancient aliens have chosen people in history to change mankind. Big Eck has the knowledge to liberate Scotland and bring peace on earth. With his statesman like humanity for his fellow man.
@Robert Hughes 8.03pm
Oh, I’m not a Guardian reader, soggy or otherwise I assure you. I suppose in the heady days of “Things Can Only Get Better” I (like many others I suspect) tended to think that things would probably turn out better than has proven to be the case. I always thought NuLabour were a nauseating confection however.
There again, like many others, I also thought Scottish nationalism, “the movement”, even the SNP (I know, I know….) were somehow different. The Cold War did indeed end, yet somehow we’re probably less secure now than we were when it happened.
Taking our collective eyes off the ball and thinking we could reduce defence spending and capabilities doesn’t look like such a smart move now.
Folk are of course entitled to make their case that an independent Scotland could or should stay out of NATO and the EU, but I still reckon it’s overwhelmingly likely you and others will prove to be in the minority. Time will tell of course.
I’m not convinced that “we” share much in the way of common ground and humanity with the regimes you mention. Once again, I reckon your worldview, however sincerely held, is very much the minority one in Scotland. If it was that popular (except in here for some inexplicable reason) I think we’d know about it and see some evidence of it.
The referendum argument is largely moot, as there isn’t going to be one. PLebiscitary elections are far more likely to be the route now. Irrespective, calls for franchise restriction of any sort will be electoral poison and likely to play badly when it comes to gaining recognition abroad. We can’t expect to become independent using some novel route nobody else has ever used, unless we want to end up like Somaliland or Turkish Cyprus without the sun.
How about you name one truly independent country. Just one it can be anywhere in the world.
Is the UK truly independent?
Just for starters they seem to be highly dependent on France. Heard of Le Touquet agreement?
Remember
No Man Is an Island
“Referenda are not for deciding multiple policies”
Missing the point of a referendum (Article in WOS Archives)
by Stuart Campbell.
It is in the Unionists best interests to get pro-indy folk bogged down in every detail of every policy rather than focus on our right to make all our own decisions.
Goodnight, Troops!
Alba seeing you at the ballot box!
@John Main 7.32pm
I suppose your Euroscepticism just seems knee jerk to me. As you know I don’t buy the “EU members are only pretendy independent” line and neither do the majority of those in EU member states. They think it’s outlandish concept, and there’s zero evidence that Scots (whether pro or anti indy) agree with you either.
You misunderstood my intent WRT to Trump and isolationism: I actually agree that it may result in a welcome sea change. I’ve always supported at the very least a more integrated European pillar in NATO, and preferably an entirely separate European defence identity, unhitched from the USA and its political, economic and military control. That presupposes the Europeans becoming more rather than less collaborative.
Of course Norway isn’t in the EU, but IS in NATO, same goes for Iceland. We’ve only just seen both Finland and Sweden abandon their neutrality and join NATO with record speed.
So, you know…..sometimes life comes at you fast.
I hope both British nationalists – and indeed a minority of Scottish nationalists – take that to heart.
We can’t expect to become independent using some novel route nobody else has ever used, unless we want to end up like Somaliland or Turkish Cyprus without the sun.
Why are you so reluctant to go along with the idea that Scotland is a colony.
Just out of curiosity has the situation that Scotland is in at present gained recognition ‘abroad’ and is it thought to be acceptable ‘abroad’?
Anyone ‘abroad’ ever think it might be shit being Scottish?
Another question is why do you describe Scotland as a place without the sun as if a sunny climate
is without problems. Would it not be more positive to describe Scotland as a place without water shortages?
@ Confused 6.20pm Housing Job requirement
“As the Govanhill area has a diverse community, the ability to speak a community language is desirable.”
WTAF is a community language, if you have tranny tenants what language do they speak, do you have to speak Polish,Albanian,Hungarian,Irish Traveller,Romanian Traveller, Yookranian, Czech, Slovakian, salary £36,000-£40,000 Cheapskates wi thay language skills
Innarestin article on the Guardian Online: “Rate Of Russian Military Production Worries European War Planners”.
Here’s some wee quotes:
“The war has led to an unprecedented redistribution of wealth”
“Their income has increased dramatically”
5-6% of those who “previously did not have enough money to buy consumer goods like a fridge now have moved upwards towards the middle classes”.
Avoid getting your head blown off, and war has always been good for getting rich.
Show us your money, Tovarisch!
Can we expect to see these same effects occurring here, with our working classes suddenly finding themselves dripping with ready moolah?
Maybes. The article clarifies that in Russtiland, work means work, and work means compulsory shifts, weekends and overtime. But you do get exemption from the draft.
But if you goof off, you’re fired, and then it’s off to be fired at for you.
Ellis is stuck in the 1930s along with Main, probably with a ham radio & a Gas mask..
Inviting NATO onto your land has really, really helped 404s “security” eh?
The cold war did end. Then what happened & by whom?
Who has over 750 military bases?
Who interferes in other countries elections?
Who starts all the wars then runs away?
Who mentioned reducing defense spending? We’d have change to spare AND it would be our own. This myth was debunked in the Top ten unionist myths during indyref 2014 & even James spelled it out for you.
From James at 3:04pm
**Scotland is also allocated £4.5 billion for defence, but the UK government only spends £1.9bn on defence in Scotland. £2.6bn of Scotland’s money is being spent outside of Scotland, where it would better be used in the country to bolster the nation’s defence.**
How did the world survive before NATO? It had an alliance just the exact same way without having to hand over a huge chunk of real estate, military bases, nukes & suffer electoral interference to appease Mr America.
& Speaking of the franchise, I see 404 refugees are now a threat to Poland as there is talk of voting rights BUT ONLY IN LOCAL ELECTIONS..Oh deary, will you be firing off an angry letter to them for being mean?
Genocide John
Because unlike the USA & the UK – Ruskies didn’t end their manufacturing capabilities.
This news just in, neither did Ch*na.
Oops!
That’s fcked everyone’s Playstation game everywhere.
Out of Ammo.
Game over.
“The war has led to an unprecedented redistribution of wealth”
“Their income has increased dramatically”
John Main.
You’d better believe it, those idiots in Washington and Westminster and Brussels thought that by applying over 20,000 sanctions on the RF that they would crush its economy, add in freezing $300 billion in assets, which they are currently trying to steal, and blowing up the NordStream pipelines and banishing it from SWIFT, that they’d end the SMO in year or so.
Of course this turned out not to be the case, as the RF pivoted East to sell its vast assets, being a member of BRICs and the SCO has also helped, and the likes of India’s Modi who is buying huge amounts of RF oil and selling it onto those clown in Brussels at a higher cost, along with the continuation of de-dollarisation in favour of multi-polarism will see the West decline and the East rise.
Always remember the downward slippy slope of western living standards is due to Washington, Westminster and Brussels f*ckin over their citizens to make a profit for their corporate buddies, via a war they created.
twathater @ 9:39 pm
“the ability to speak a community language is desirable”
Aye, ony language but Scots, A wad expeck. Oor ain naitional government dinnae e’en value oor ain Scots langage or fowk wha speak it.
Such is life in a colonial society, a fowk deprived o thair ain langage, an thair naitional identity:
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/07/04/paper-two-the-determinants-of-independence/
Campbell is still a tyrannical scrote over the lockdown, compulsory vaccination and Covid passports.
When it came to the most illiberal policies in post WWII Europe, his silence and acquiescence will neither be forgiven nor forgotten.
(Bath & computer games are shit, anyway.)
@ Charles Hodgson 11.06 pm Thank you for that information Charles, I like many on WOS have obviously been the subject of intense misinformation and lies perpetrated on unsuspecting independence supporters by the evil entity that is Stuart Campbell
I can only apologise for the obvious widespread stupidity endemic on WOS, there are even commenters who insist that they know the voting intentions of every Scottish citizen and they also have uninterrupted access to the thoughts and opinions of every world leader and every world organisation
I must admit I am angry and upset that Campbell has managed to convince enough people that sturgeon and her loyal government of Scotland alongside Boris Johnson and his competent party goers are the ones who introduced lockdown and inflicted heinous untested vaccines on trusting people when all the time it was him, Campbell and his nefarious actions responsible
NURSE!!! NURSE!!! Charlies off his meds and is running free again
@ Geri 10.11pm LOL at your Ham Radio and Gas Mask yeh the same Scotland is SHITE repeated ad infinitum
Innaresin’ article in the Daily Mail.
‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’
Cos’ an Indy blog needs to be plastered with more London opinion.
@Geri 10.11pm
Defence spending in most NATO countries reduced significantly after the end of the Cold War. No threat of Russian tanks rolling across the North German plain meant all the hard of thinking sophomoric types could declare the West had “won” and there was no plausible threat. I seem to recall someone even called it the end of history.
In fact it was more akin to demilitarising after WW1, then suddenly realising in the 1930’s that it might not have been a great idea. Hence the scrabbling around now to ramp up production again in the face of the current war, and the realisation that if you want capable defence forces you have to spend the money, have the industrial capacity to build the necessary armaments, but most importantly of all you have to have enough service personnel.
James’ point is one I made loudly in 2014 thanks very much: he didn’t invent it. The advantages to an independent Scotland of having 2% (or even 1.5%) of its own GDP to spend as it saw fit on our own defence and security, rather than on British nationalist objectives, are pretty obvious. Getting rid of WMD’s are only one part of it.
Having our own navy, army and air force means a lot of the money which currently goes to Westminster to spend on its priorities, can be spent here, or in buying the things we want, from where we want. It’s not difficult to foresee that an independent Scotland can spend less than we currently contribute to the bloated UK defence budget, be more secure, take the benefits of more spending within Scotland, and still play a part in NATO if that’s what people vote for, just like our Scandinavian friends.
We only have to look at the example if our near neighbours to see the potential pluses. It would also have the benefit of course of not having to scramble to send a destroyer from Portsmouth to chase the Russki navy out of the Dornoch Firth.
I doubt your Wolfie Smith style approach to international relations will appeal to most Scots, but fill yer boots: if you can persuade the majority to support it, then so be it. I wudnae haud ma’ breath tho’!
@ Republicofscotland says: 15 February, 2024 at 10:43 pm
via a war they created
Aye, right.
As I wrote the other day, you seem unable to comprehend the concept that some people and nations have agency and minds of their own.
Pres Poot & the Orcs thought it would be a wheeze to invade a vast and rich country of 45 million free people.
They created the war.
It’s over when the Orcs feck off back to the shithole they came from.
And yet again, RoS, you’re all over the fecking place in your post. Is it a SMO, or is it a war? Mak yer fecking mind up.
@ Alf Baird says: 15 February, 2024 at 10:50 pm
“the ability to speak a community language is desirable”
More like mandatory.
That ability will provide the sieve to remove indigenous Scots from the shortlist. As I have pointed out before, shortlists of New Scots only are the way to go.
Plus, you have to think ahead to ScotGov’s intent of having us in the EU. What earthly use will speaking Scots be in Brussels?
I’m betting there are already formal and informal lobbying groups of “community language” speakers within the vast EU bureaucracy.
C’moan, Alf, you of all people should know how this colonialism malarky works!
Main and Ellis are awful keen on war.
There must be a financial benefit in it for them.
When the Cold War ended in the early nineties, the intelligence and war industries were shocked to discover that their jobs maybe excess to requirement unless they thought up a new wheeze.
Moves into economic and financial espionage were unsuccessful.
More profitable were encouraging colour revolutions to invent conflict, especially using salafist proxies in the ME and elsewhere.
Raising the temperature at home with fake terror events, helped, and justified foreign conquest.
But, in truth, nothing filled the gap left by the USSR so the Skripal event was created to ramp up a new Cold War, and here we are, the money stream is back on tap;
huge overpriced arms contracts, overmanning, pensions, private school fees all back on track.
Trebles all round!
@ Andy Ellis says: 16 February, 2024 at 7:33 am
Getting rid of WMD’s are only one part of it
Mostly a good post, Andy, but the above line jars.
I’ve seen Hadrian’s Wall. It won’t stop the blast or the radiation coming north from an rUK that I don’t think will be giving up on its nukes.
And the EU/Europe won’t be giving theirs up either – quite the contrary. And if iScotland is going to be happily embedded in both, as you forever claim, then iScotland will remain the perfect place to park some of them.
Indy won’t be immediately changing either our strategically important geography, or our relatively low population density.
I admit there was a time when nuclear disarmament might have made sense. With an imperialist, expansionist aggressor in Moscow, frequently rattling his nuclear sabre, that time is long gone.
We’re coming up to the two-year anniversary of the event that changed the entire Indy calculus for ever. I can see from some of the posts on here that a full understanding of the consequences of what happened in February 2022 is still being worked out in people’s minds.
No hurry! We’ll all get there eventually.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned but Alba are making a catastrophic mistake if they don’t change tack now and stand on an abstentionist ticket for Westminster
It’s the only way to stand out from the crowd
Put clear light between them and the treacherous SNP
Alex, Kenny, Neale- the days of Westminster are over, act now or go the same way as those you wish to replace!
@John Main 8.26pm
I’m a multilateralist John, not a unilateralist. Nuclear weapons aren’t going to be uninvented, and I have little doubt they will be around for a while. The sunny uplands of a global government which does not require recourse to the use of force are still some way off I fear.
That being said, if (when?) an independent Scotland decides that it does not want WMD’s on its territory, then our British friends will be obliged to find a new home for theirs. That won’t happen overnight of course, but as many (including Rev Stu from memory) have pointed out it’s a pretty good bargaining chip in the negotiations post indy, as we know how fond the britnats are of their nukes and having a seat at the “top table”.
The eye watering proportion of the UK defence budget which is spent on the nuclear deterrent is of course a major reason why the rest of our armed forces are decidedly sub par. If the money and other resources spent on that were directed towards conventional forces, R&D and improving the pay and conditions of service personnel, we might be in a better place.
I think your characterisation of some pronouncements on here about the situation in country 404 (or indeed most other situations) as “understanding” is far too kind. Luckily their sophomoric Galloway-esque worldview isn’t one shared by that many people. 🙂
Wee note about the trolls
Even with the ignore function they’re putting me off visiting
JM AE etc plus the certifiable one on our side make it very hard to want to engage
@Tartanpigsty 8.58pm
If echo chambers are your thing I recommend Wee Ginger dug’s site.
If “your side” is that of the certifiable one (which you’re going to have to narrow down, soz…!) I doubt your input will be missed that much.
I couldn’t say your inputs so far encourage engagement, even though – just as a free example – I and many others probably agree with you about abstensionism from Westminster being the way forward.
Of course, you could stick around and engage: hopefully it’d amount to more than the output of the usual suspects. We won’t be holding our collective breath given past experience.
Beware! Goldfish talking.
The devolutionist SNP and its controlers are a barrier to independence.
How difficult a task to remove the controlers and rebrand?
No finesse required, just the will and the energy or are we still estimating how many ScotNat politicians can stand on the head of a pin.
@Turabdin 9.07am
A lot of voters just aren’t that politically engaged, however much people posting here think otherwise. Hence the relatively strong showing for the SNP in polls for the upcoming Westminster election: most folk aren’t going to vote for “minor” pro-independence parties in a WM General election because they think it’ll be a wasted vote.
All bets are off for the 2026 Holyrood election. If the scales haven’t fallen from more eyes by then, we might as well settle ourselves in for a long slog to destroy the SNP and fashion a “real” independence movement rather than keep betting on a bunch of crypto devolusionists like the SNP.
Whether the Scottish electorate have the bottle to do to the SNP what the Irish did to the IPP in 1918 remains to be seen.
If anyone is looking for John Main ( eg his maw , to tell him his teas’s oot ) he’s probably hiding in that bunker at the bottom of his garden : he tried to hide under the bed but it was full of * Reds * , so the wee soul ran oot the hoose , greetin ; the dafty didn’t see that those * Reds * were his own fear projected onto his collection of teddy bears . Well , their red jackets could have misled his perception , I suppose .
What makes me suspicious about Our Man In Havana Laugh , is he is clearly an intelligent man , yet he’s been punting the most ridiculous , amateurish propaganda , straight out of Blimp Studios Central Casting , for , whats feels like eternity .
Every extremely well informed/experienced * non-aligned * ( with the U.S War Machine ) source eg….
Scott Ritter : ” is an American author, former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer, former United Nations Special Commission weapons inspector . Ritter served as a junior military analyst during Operation Desert Storm. ”
Col Doug MacGregor : ” Douglas Abbott Macgregor is a retired U.S. Army colonel, government official, author, consultant, and political commentator. He was a leader in an early tank battle in the Gulf War and was a top planner in the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. ” . ( forget Trump , if we wanted a prominent American to take-up our Cause , MacGregor is the man – note the clan coat-of-arms on his wall )
Jeffrey Sachs : ” is an American economist and public policy analyst, professor at Columbia University,[5][6] .From 2001 to 2018, Sachs served as Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General, and held the same position under the previous UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ”
John Mearsheimer : Distinguished Service Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Chicago
Ray McGovern : ex- CIA Analyst
Larry Johnson : ex-CIA .
….has said * ussia has not now nor has ever had ( post Soviet era ) any hegemonic intent and the idea ( promoted by John Wean et al ) that they would invade Europe is risible in the extreme . They have neither the desire nor the capacity for such a thing
So , who to give credibility to ?
Let’s see ……all those veterans of US Military & Political thinking/machinations , with decades of first-hand knowledge/experience AND access to current * insider * information ?
Or ….* guy on Interweb * with an embarrassingly obvious blind hatred of what he – in his delusion – STILL thinks are * Communist * countries ( LOL ) ?
Close one , eh ? Well , after serious consideration , I’m gonna have to come-down on the side of the former .
Surprised by folk who think if SNP lose Westminster and then Holyrood elections then they will slowly disappear.
Sadly Every loser wins in these protected Party political days..They will just swap places with Labour and Tories by taking up those lovely money for absolutely hee-haw List Seats and all those lovely Quangoes…and of course…the Lords may even await for a few…
In fact now I think about it, could an SNP failure at Holyrood election see the removal of all those Tory List MPs like wee Annie Wells?…every cloud…
JOhn Main.
On the contrary the West created the war, when the Great Satan (US) planned a coup against the democratically elected Viktor Yanukovych from the US embassy in Kiev, organised by Victoria Nuland.
For eight years the west turned a blind eye to atrocities committed by the Neo-Natzi YouCranian forces in the Donbas, where like in Gaza civilians and civilian infrastructure was/is the target, only when the US had its puppet president in place did the reports from the MSM stop of the vile actions of the Neo-Natzi brigades dry up and somehow YouCrane became an innocent victim of RF aggression.
ANDY ELLIS
It is a truism that political parties with a perceived «radical» ticket become less so when they have tasted the status benefits of power.
The British Labour party is a classic of the type and the SNP is the more contemporary version.
I think the same also applies to politicians who effectively have exceeded their useful life by staying around too long.
British politics is a rather brackish pool with some peculiarly antique life forms inhabiting it.
It plainly needs draining, assuming the sluice gates are not too corroded by apathy and insularity.
Starmer’s overt Neoliberalism and partisan Zionist agenda will save a substantial portion of Flynn’s dae nuthin’ parasites.
YouGov, Where do sympathies lie, Palestine / Israel, field work 12 – 13 Feb.
Excluding don’t know & equal.
UK, Palestine net +12%
England, Palestine net +10%
Scotland, Palestine net +20%
Next week the SNP will weaponise Scotland’s innate sympathies for the Palestinian cause to damage the position of Labour in Scotland and save their own worthless skins. They will don a faux persona as “radicals”. Whether Stewart McDonald has run this past his Handlers in Foggy Bottom is unknowable. Ultimately it matters not a jot, it’s just performative posturing, theatre.
The MRP Poll from earlier this week put the SNP’s Westminster prospects at 40 seats just behind the LibDems on 53 seats.
The two by-elections yesterday had the LibDems vote collapse to 4.7% and 3.3%, while interestingly RefUK’s vote remained resilient at >10%.
Does this cast doubt on the prospects of the LibDems predicted in the MRP Poll, or will there be quid pro quo, tactical voting by would be Labour voters?
It would be frankly infuriating to see Flynn’s troupe of troughers emerge once again as the 3rd largest party in the HoC and settle down for another five years of luxuriously remunerated prevarication.
Robert Hughes.
Here is Sachs in action.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/15/how-the-cia-destabilizes-the-world/
The other names you mentioned are excellent reporters as well, Sy Hersh has a long history of telling it like it is , we lost a great recently in John Pilger.
Robert Hughes 9.38am
Yes, the Reds Under The Bed is a difficult phobia to get rid of. A wee bit like the Crocodiles one which to this day has a strangely disconcerting effect on ageing siblings, terrorised in childhood. Early conditioning has a lot to answer for. Reason goes right oot the windae!
How much longer can Police Scotland delay?
Are they waiting until after the GE?
That could be as late as January 2025.
Anyway what the hell. The GE here in Scotland is all about who gets the cushy job and that’s it.
I’m voting for the ‘Posie Parker’ party and if Alba had any sense they would take a look at Posie’s manifesto and adopt some of her policies ie repeal the GRA 2004.
As it stand with regards to ‘Women’s issues’ they are exactly the same as the Tories.
This gender id stuff is a huge issue it could potentially win Alba a lot of votes.
I think Alba could be yet another ‘Man’s Party’
@ Andy Ellis
A lot of voters just aren’t that politically engaged, however much people posting here think otherwise.
Your posts are a bit like a lot of newspaper articles they make these pronouncements in the headlines ‘Voters in Scotland aren’t politically engaged’ and then they never give any explanation why that is.
Turn out for Holyrood & GE = 60%
Local elections 30%
A lot of the 60% just go along because they feel it’s their duty.
Why is turnout so low and why are voters not politically engaged?
Why would you think posters here think people are politically engaged?
Maybe if you live in a colony and think your vote doesn’t count then why bother.
Tartanpigsy at 8:58 am
“Wee note about the trolls
Even with the ignore function they’re putting me off visiting
JM AE etc plus the certifiable one on our side make it very hard to want to engage”
————————————-
TP. That’s what it’s about from the britnats.
The Rev’s articles are the benchmark for Independence and anything that gets in the way of it, fully researched and backed up by hard evidence facts. Friend and foe all read them.
The britnats, SNP gravy trainers etc. can’t touch him cos he makes mincemeat out of them, so what else can they do but go for the integrity of the site.
Turn the BTL comments into an unreadable flood of bull***t, deflection, disparaging commentators and voila the thread is fkd
Job done.
@Grafmidgehunter 12.26pm
Turn the BTL comments into an unreadable flood of bull***t, deflection, disparaging commentators and voila the thread is fkd
Ach, dinnae be sae hard on yersel’ bud: no a’ yer stuff is like that. More than can be said for most o’ the usual suspects right enough…
John Main makes the claim that an iScotland in the EU wouldn’t be a truly independent country.
I asked him to name just one country in the world that was a truly independent country and he couldn’t.
Can anyone help him out and name a truly independent country or why countries are not truly independent.
Off the top of my head I’m think the UK is very reliant on France ie
Le Touquet’ agreement Gibraltar reliant on Spain to keep the border open
UK reliant on Norway for gas supply, France for nuclear.
I have no idea what the UK sell I’m guessing it’s a lot of arms. UK reliant on countries buying their weapons. If you are selling weapons you need customers therefore you need wars.
The biggy is that the UK is reliant on China for everything else.
Can you imagine what it would be like if there were no goods coming from China.
John Main reckons we should declare war on China because well Wuhan Lab/Covid.
Who are the usual suspects? Is that some sort of secret code between yourself Main & Chas.
Do you think by using the term usual suspects you can deny any ‘personal abuse’.
Watch out for the ‘fuckin’ playground shit’ mate you are sailing pretty close to the wind.
I can tell you are just dying for a good old bitch session. Why not ask Stu to allow it.
Who is the ‘certifiable one’?
Is it me or are there more than one ‘certifiable’ on here?
PS Being ‘certifiable’ is pretty liberating especially when others are afraid to ‘speak your name’
The very ‘unusual suspects’ on this forum go on about this ‘International Group’ that would not accept us should we do anything untoward vis a vis gaining independence. They would be on it quick as a flash.
What I find strange about this ‘International Group’ outwith this illegal declaring of independence they don’t seem to be aware of our existence.
If they were you would think they would be aware of our plight and maybe have a few words with Westminster & Holyrood or at least write a letter to the papers.
I am not impressed with this ‘International Group’ and I’m wondering what they are all about or even if they exist.