Wings Over Scotland

Saw this on Facebook, good to see him free and excellent speech.
But what an indictment of the society we live in that he was sent to prison.

Great speech! An absolute disgrace he was sent to prison – corruption coming from the top!

Ill health stopped me from being at Saughton yesterday but glad to see some of the stalwarts were there Wee Annie Jenkins wie her Wings Flag . All the Bestest Guys n Gals .

Welcome home Craig, it is shameful that a country like Scotland with a party that is a registered Scottish Party & we the people of Scotland trusted this party to be our government.

Could behave towards the very people who built that party up, by turning every part of our rights & freedoms into crimes, is something none of us could ever have dreamed of happening, the nasty way of trying to jail & destroy a friend of decades, proves she would as we say here in Scotland stab her granny in the back in the blink of an eye.

I hope you sue her & the nasty cabal she calls her cabinet. For the injustice inflicted on you & your family through FEAR of anyone getting the truth, which would be if the MSM in Scotland ever had the guts to broadcast or print BOTH sides of the witnesses, no just the Lord Advocates Alphabetties side.

To think that for 300yrs+ we as a country have blamed WM for every nasty policy & bill forced on us by another country, only to watch our own government do so much worse to this country and it’s people.

If we do not ditch that party and ditch it soon, she/her will have handed over every part of our NHS, our WATER, along with every asset that makes this country richer than any of her FOUR Nations.. It is a party of TRAITORS to this country..

She is the devil in carnet herself, Thatcher would be so proud of her.. Because no decent true Scot ever could be.
Take time with your family Craig, can’t wait to see you take her to the cleaners..

Loved the speech Craig.
You’re right about Dignity, and Scotland seems to be losing any it had left. The world IS watching and I feel so badly let down by the cabal and it’s antics.

Humble, dignified, caring and compassionate, erudite, powerful – absoutely brilliant.

The world, particularly Scotland, needs to hear Craig and others like him, many of whom we already know and are in our midst.

Welcome back Craig.

Great speech Craig. I look forward to developments.

Thanks for sticking around Stu. Great to see you blogging again.

An excellent speech. Glad to have Craig back home. Looking forward to him getting back in the political saddle. First things first – time with his family.

Welcome home, to Craig.

Nothing but respect for Craig.

Nothing but contempt for the COPFS… Crime Only Pays… For Some.

We all know who should be in jail, starting with She/Her, her smiling assassin in the Civil Service, and a list of those who fabricated a narrative which unravelled under scrutiny.

Unfortunately, it was unravelled by legal team of a calibre beyond most of our means. Spare a thought then for those who find themselves in the cross-hairs of the COPFS who can’t afford a legal representation equal in ability to Salmond”s.

I’m listening to Craig as I type this – he’d be a huge asset to ALBA as a candidate. Fingers crossed…

And the day after Craig gets out (Welcome home, Craig!) we have this good news…

link to news.stv.tv

Thanks for this post, and, naturally, I’ll tweet it.

“Many people in Saughton who should not be in there”
Quite a few who *should be* in there, and some – we know who you are – who’ll end-up in ‘the other place’.

I can’t help but feel a recent and growing wave of optimism coming over myself and over our movement; we’ve had good progress and new members in Alba (I call them ‘No to Yes’ members), with Salmond quietly going-about his business of opening eyes and winning over minds, we’ve had Wishart, and others within the NO party, becoming clearly more desperate, and now we have Craig’s triumphant release and another crack-troop back to working our cause – must all be sending shivers up a few spines.
Tall oaks from small acorns, we’re getting there.

Wonderful to see the great man in such good spirits after that ridiculous disgusting persecution conducted by our idiot FM.

Welcome back Craig !!!

@ Derek Cameron: McNally v Saunders sounds interesting. I was hoping that Craig need not go through the English courts en route to ECHR but I’ve changed my mind now!

Craig, appeal to English courts NOW – it would be done and dusted by Christmas [well, quicker than going to the EHCR, anyway].

Great to see Mr Murray out and in such buoyant spirits , his obvious good nature undiminished by his outrageously unjust incarceration.

The pond life who put him there – like those who attempted the same against A Salmond – are not worthy of scraping the dirt off that man’s shoes and will sooner or later meet their nemesis .

Ronnie , hope you are on the mend – big hug!

Loved Craigs speech, excellent.

O/T: Indy Live’s crowdfunder needs help.

Yesterday there was understandable criticism of the sound quality on their coverage of Craig’s speech BUT they run a radio as well, with several hours of programmes daily INCLUDING John Drummond interviewing people.

Look at Indy Live’s website and see if you agree that they deserve a few quid.

@ BDtt

Aye, I know about her not being present on that evening. I just want to 100% confirm she is also the one that sent the message.
I’ve commented previously that there is no way someone could send that message with all the implications it has for some extremely powerful people, without having run it by extremely powerful people that could ensure it didn’t burn their entire house down.
It just seems at odds with then putting oneself in a position of potentially being charged with perjury… unless they are just a complete idiot.

Watched the speech a short time ago and I thought he looked quite well all things considered. The grub must have been OK as he still had a suitable reserve around the waist..!

What I did like was the fighting spirit and determination that he projected, I think he’s going to make them pay for what they’ve done to him and the YES movement. 🙂

I get the feeling that those who were quick to incarcerate Craig Murray (and those who watched in silence) may regret it as he will now be able to direct a spotlight that will help reveal to the world the surppurating sore that is Scotland’s system of incarceration. A system that punishes (not rehabilitates, nor heals nor assists) the weakest, the sick and the most broken people in our society – the inheritors of inflicted poverty. Punishment piled upon punishment. All power to your pen Craig.

Good to see Craig out, shameful episode for Scotland.

The man is an asset to our cause.

I trust he will get justice in the long run.

@ Breeks: “it’s a lot worse than perjury – contempt, conspiracy, subordination of perjury, defamation..”

Ooh, you know how to make a lot of people very happy! Please, please, may some of these cases happen soon. Perhaps Joanna Cherry would help? 🙂 🙂

Craig Murray can sleep the sleep of the just,

Leeona June Dorrian, Lady Dorrian and Alex Prentice QC not so much.

Leviticus 19:15
“ ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.`

Robert Graham says: at 7:54 pm

o/t

“Censorship on steroids in our media , anything to do with or making reference to the plague is strictly forbidden in fact Utube totally wipes any and all references contributors are having to self censor their comments even it they are backed up with reputable sources

36 young athletes and footballers have dropped dead on the pitch all with heart attacks and no comments from our media , all just coincidence

I would have thought this would cause alarm bells or is it another rare occurrence just like the best part of 2000 rare occurrences since the wonder Chemical was introduced, Aye a wonder concoction indeed most wonder if they will make it to the exit after their shot”
————————

Young athletes, sailors, footballers, just about any sport you know. They’ve been dropping dead for decades and more from heart attacks, strokes, exhaustion, over-ambitious etc. etc. etc..

We all know you’re a conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxer who’ll believe any thing from youtube, bitchute or anyone else who’ll try to convince the world that the dead and dying are piling up 10 high on the streets.

If it was 2000 rare occurrences compared to the billions being immunised then we’re not doing too bad at all.

No body is perfect, each has a limit even if you eat your cornflakes every morning.

Exactly Hatuey, Robert Graham is trying to pin any and every abnormality on the vaccines. Apparently we’ll soon all be Zombies.

Next week I’ll be getting my booster… 🙂

Breeks at 0856pm,

We can only hope that one day, those responsible are held to account. Scotland cannot even pretend to be a ‘progressive’ country until that happens. Putting innocent journalists like Craig in jail, is the stuff of dictatorships and the most corrupt administrations. THAT is Nicola Sturgeon’s REAL legacy.

Welcome home Craig, Christmas spent at home with your family will hold a lot more meaning to you & you’re loved ones this year.

But a new worry for journalists and journalism raises its ugly head with Priti Patel suddenly pressing through last minute pages in the new bill (protests include ) just gone through.
A totalitarian Britain has arrived,

Enough to worry the favoured guardian journalists,
However the new laws may backfire as more journalists gather to fight for the right for a free press, similar to Craig.

Having slept on it, I still like the idea of Craig becoming an ALBA candidate, but at the same time, I hope that Craig Murray can be the catalyst that opens people’s eyes to Sturgeon and her corrupt ineptitude.

And therein lies a problem, because many of those good people who’ve been duped by the SNP have also been brainwashed to see ALBA as the enemy, and Craig joining ALBA could just reinforce their paranoia.

Sturgeon is doing to Independence what the Trans Taliban were doing to the SNP; go ahead, damage us, and you’ll be wrecking your own cause. They’re both using people’s firmly held beliefs as a human shield.

So, I hope Craig Murray has a good Christmas and recovers his strength, but then I hope, as I said above, his disgusting incarceration becomes the catalyst for bringing down Sturgeon and her crooked cabal. That recent fall in her popularity is, I hope, a sign that more and more people are seeing right through her.

Sturgeon needs to go, and soon, but I think there are risks involved if it’s seen to be ALBA wielding the knife. There are some who will never forgive them.

For that reason, I am more and more in favour of the SSRG’s plan for a Constitutional route out of the Union, which, if memory serves, isn’t a million miles away from what Craig Murray was himself advocating on his blog a couple of years ago.

The first priority must always be Scotland and Scottish Independence, of course it must, but I think the sweetest revenge on Sturgeon by Alex Salmond, Craig Murray, Joanna Cherry etc, would be to actually bring home Scottish Independence, and do it in a way that leaves Sturgeon and Holyrood impotent and irrelevant, and moved to the outermost periphery of the Independence campaign.

That means, I think, a reinvention of the old 1980’s Scottish UN Committee, which did most of the groundwork for re-establishing a Scottish Parliament, but it did so with most of efforts going on underneath the radar.

Wouldn’t it be tremendous to see Craig Murray running interference, creating merry Hell for Sturgeon as she tries to suppress her nefarious activities, ( I believe the expression is fire fighting on many fronts), while quietly in the background, the Treaty of Union is demolished by ALBA and the SSRG, and the UK Government’s colonialism in subjugating Scotland out of Europe quietly unravels until it falls apart.

Robin McAlpine nails it here on Craig Murray’s unjust imprisonment, Craig Murray must take this injustice to the European courts.

link to robinmcalpine.org

What this says to me at least, is that Scotland has become a sleazy corrupt banana boat state, where laws, apply to some but not others depending on what connections you have.

@Hatuey,

from The Times,

`Health experts have been left baffled by a big rise in a common and potentially fatal type of heart attack in the west of Scotland.

During the summer there was a 25 per cent rise (260 to 300) in the number of people rushed to the Golden Jubilee National Hospital in Clydebank with partially blocked arteries cutting blood supply to the heart.`

“ALMOST 1000 EU nationals living in Glasgow have had their applications to stay after Brexit rejected by the Home Office.”

Its not that they were refused that gets on my goat, its the fact that a foreign country has the say on who can and cannot stay in Scotland.

link to archive.md

@Hatuey

I believe this is the link you are looking for:

link to thetimes.co.uk

In other more recent covid news:

Peer reviewed science accuses covid managers of gross negligence:

“…It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission when deciding about public health control measures…”:

link to thelancet.com

Okay, so the 25% increase was at one hospital over a specific period and was explained as follows by Mitchell Lindsay, lead consultant cardiologist at the hospital;

“There is not any evidence that it is as a consequence of any delayed care or missed opportunity. It is likely to be due to a multitude of factors: people being sedentary with lockdown; stress; people ignoring symptoms because they do not want to present at hospital. There are probably five to ten causes, all linked.”

In other words, not causally related to the vaccine.

It’s extremely serious because they had to increase the number of beds available at the hospital over the period by an earth-shaking 13.

link to archive.md

Latest COVID statistical report published yesterday by Public Health Scotland – all ‘verifiable’ (for those that like that kind of thing) and irrefutable.

link to publichealthscotland.scot

Let’s look firstly at table 20. If we take the last week on record, 20th-26th Nov, there were 347 people hospitalised in total – and 105 of them were unvaccinated.
That means 30.3% of hospitalisations were unvaccinated, and given that (which i personally don’t believe) the current rate of vaccination is 72.4 % then it just demonstrates that you are no more likely to be hospitalised if you have not received the vaccine compared to those that have.

You may wish to argue over a couple of percent here and there, feel free, but those with a modicum of common sense will see this for what it is.

Let’s look at the current COVID death rates.
Table 21 shows 91 deaths in the most recent week on record – only 13 of them were unvaccinated – 14.3%.
So, 85.7% of all COVID deaths were vaccinated (mostly twice).
Given the current vaccination status is only 72.4 – what does that tell you?

Put any desperate spin on it you wish – it doesn’t change these published and accepted facts.

@Robert Graham
Don’t you call me a sheep. I have a biology PhD, I understand things you misunderstand and are ignorant/misled on. The crime though is that your mind is closed. You will not be taught, you will not listen.

I just hope you are not one of these ‘if only I had had the vaccine’ as they get sedated for ventilation in the ICU. Was reading about another denier, fit, very healthy 40yo. Dead of Covid. There is only one way to ensure that is not you. Get vaccinated.

Omicron has ousted Delta in Gauteng province in SA. It is here in Scotland. SA’s hospitals are overwhelmed. You saw India run out of oxygen supplies, people gasping themselves to death outside the overwhelmed hospitals.

You are guilty of spreading untruths during a global health emergency which is ongoing. Shame on you, shame.

Craig update: he’s speaking at Alba’s Christmas party, accompanied by Nadira. Great stuff.

@Dan 8;45 and 10:54pm

People have short memories. Arwen was supposedly a once in a lifetime event. Absolute nonsense. I experienced much the same over a working life. They privatised the Hydro (I worked for them for many years). 7 day outages were common place. February 1989 as an example of 90mph wind, a mere bagatelle. Just wait to get ice loading. Households had resilience in them days Raeburn etc. We had community plans and joint emergency plans with local authorities etc.
SSE have decided to employ this week 680 plus distribution staff. Why?. Well the politicians through their Ofgem have sought reductions in man power. Reap the rewards, politicians can and do walk away. The fact that Sturgeon took until Tuesday to recognise the problem tells you all you need to know. I wrote of the hardship of people in Aberdeenshire on Sunday on this blog.

James Barr Gardner says:at 11:54 pm

“As one who can speak from personal experience in regard to vaccines I will elucidate on my own experiences.

I was extremely fit as a 62 year old, I thought as was doing well for my age however I did not know I had Pneumococcal ! That’s right I was walking about with it !”
——————

Pneumococcal disease can affect people at any age. The following people have higher risk of infection:

babies and children aged 5 and under
people aged 70 and over
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children aged 5 and under living in Queensland, Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults aged 50 and over
anyone with a weakened immune system due to illness or injury
people with a malfunctioning spleen, or who have had their spleen removed
people with chronic diseases such as diabetes, lung disease, kidney disease, heart disease, liver disease or cancer
premature babies
people who have Down syndrome
people who smoke
people who drink harmful amounts of alcohol
people who have had specific operations including cochlear implants and intracranial shunts
people who have a condition where the fluid leaks out from around their brain and spinal cord
people who have had pneumococcal disease before.

James, are you by any chance an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander or just a Scot? 😉

O/T regarding Holyrood access, and the SNP acting to prevent it. I went down to Holyrood last night, and noticed NEW concrete barrier support blocks which have been placed on ALL roads leading to the parliament. No barriers have been attached to them yet. They are on roadsides, including leading from outside the parliament estate. Please note, these are NOT the ones currently used to close off the park road at weekends. Bit by bit, road access to that area of Edinburgh is being removed entirely, with the road by duddingston closed due to some ‘rock falls’ (which, btw have been happening since I was a wee boy, but now mean main roads are closed permanently).

People should take note. It strikes me, that plans are afoot, to completely block all road access to Holyrood, using one pretendy excuse after another.

Angry Weegie’s post from yesterday, SNP – The Scottish Near-fascist Party, link to angryweegie.wordpress.com was short but it had one very important thing to say:

Second, following independence, we need to elect a Scottish government that isn’t simply going to copy the worst of Westminster policy and wrap a tartan ribbon round it.

Right now, I don’t see how this can be avoided. Every politician and person in a position of influence was born and grew up under the Westminster system. It’s all they know. When independence does come it’s going to take people of great strength and foresight to work methodically and diligently to avoid simply cloning the Westminster system. Failing to do that will leave us in a situation that is probably worse than it is now.

South Africa is a good example. There was real progress under Mandela but the country soon fell into the clutches of the kleptocrats. You can forget citing the likes of Egypt, Romania, etc. those well all thinly disguised coups by the elites in power at the time. Even here in Portugal, after the 1974 Carnation revolution, the elites simply continued as before. It will take generations to clean up the corruption that stemmed from the nepotism and corporatism that was fostered to keep the regime in power.

How to clean house from top to bottom without burning it down (metaphorically speaking) is certainly an interesting problem.

If you think that’s being unfair to Holyrood, I would remind you of our corrupt First Minister content to jail Independence leaning dissidents, who ignores repeated mandates from the sovereign Scottish electorate, but who presents Section 30 of the colonial 1998 Scotland Act, the small ‘c’ constitution of the Holyrood Assembly, as the “only” legitimate and lawful route to securing a Referendum.

It’s not Boris Johnson blocking a Scottish Referendum. He has never actually been asked to grant one.

We have rogues in Holyrood, and Holyrood masquerading as our Parliament, and Scots too dumb and constitutionally naive to work out we are electing representatives to embed and facilitate colonial rule from Westminster. Do you see the con of it yet?

Sturgeon is their Gauleiter in Chief, and if you still don’t see it yet, ask yourself why we, the sovereign people of Scotland, have no impeachment protocol for holding either her, or Holyrood to account?

So have any parents withdrawn their sons from Tranny View Primary in Edinburgh or have they keeled over to the man haters and are the men allowing themselves to be mentally saturated and humiliated…
.

Robert Louis @7.34am.

Robert we should have known that Holyrood was going to be turned into some sort of inaccessible government building, including the surrounding grounds, when those camping nearby several years back until independence was achieved, were forcibly removed by our politicians via the courts.

Craig’s speech was great, and I hope he takes this all the way to European Court of Human Rights and that sturgeon & co are finally exposed fully and dealt with accordingly.

I agree with Breeks that the S30 approach must and should be abandoned as it will be fixed by sturgeon and her WM cronies like Priti Patel and Johnson.

For those who are trying to dismiss Storm Arwen as no more than happens occasionally, maybe they should try travelling throughout Aberdeenshire to the communities still without power and no end in sight yet, through all the roads that are still blocked with fallen trees, look at the houses damaged by falling trees, have a look at the hectares after hectares of forested hillside which have been completely flattened.

At 65 years old,(and disabled) having lived all my life in Scottish rural communities (apart from a year in France)and most of these years in Grampian, I have never in my life seen such utter incredible devastation, and nor has anyone I have spoken to in the area. Speak to the communities which were without water for almost a week, as well as without food, heating, lighting etc, and speak to the council about their plans to dispose of the tons and tons of rotted foods from freezers and fridges throughout the area – they are still making emergency plans on how to dispose of all this and we are currently advised to put these rotted foods in the landfill bins when our green food recycling bins are full. All gas canisters, torch batteries, candles and gas cylinders for over 50 miles around have been sold out and there have been few supplies getting in. There are still power saws humming away in every direction as unsafe and fallen trees are removed. I am right now suffering yet another power cut after having had to wait till 11.30pm Wednesday night for it to be restored and many local areas are still getting power cuts of several hours. Add to that the areas and roads and drains which were flooded both with the storm and from the rapid snow melt at the start of the week and you begin to understand the sheer scale of the devastation this storm created. And to my knowledge, Sturgeon hasn’t lifted a finger to help our Aberdeenshire communities, nor have the media reported fully on the scale of the damage and devastation.

I myself was caught in the storm on Friday night after having to take a very sick old dog in pain to be pts. On the way home I twice had to stop for fallen trees being cleared off the road, and also had to drive through floods on the roads. I could see on the skyline, huge green flashes of light, presumably from electricity cables being snapped or taken down. Then I came across a car sitting on top of a fallen tree with more trees across the road beyond it. The driver had abandoned the car. I turned my car, with trees and branches still falling, to go back and round a back road, but in that few minutes, more trees had fallen behind me and I was trapped. I had to abandon my car, and in darkness, driving sleet and gales I had to climb over the many old and very large trees including beech and pine, finding a way through their branches while trees were falling all around me. There was no light to see by and no houses near by with lights as the power was off by this time and there was no phone signal as the masts were down. The road was like a freezing river. I feel lucky to have survived that 2 mile walk home through falling trees. So please don’t do the medias’ silencing job for them by trying to gaslight and belittle this storm – it was truly horrific and the consequences, including for wildlife like the endangered species -red squirrels and hedgehogs and others, will be with us for years to come.

Trouser: “By implication he is denigrating the first rate performance of the Scottish National Health Service.”

First rate? In my experience, the first response of the health service when covid hit last year was a sign on the doctor’s surgery door telling me to fuck off and die… to be clear, they didn’t use that exact phraseology but the message was clear enough and basically the same. Actually, little has changed since.

Meanwhile, as all that was going on, our nurses were left to deal with the deadly disease wearing things like bin bags and recycled or homemade face masks instead of real PPE. They were supposed to be prepared for this sort of thing.

The costs are first rate, though, I’ll give you that. Over a third of the taxes we pay go towards this charade. The service itself has huge holes of inconsistency and mediocrity all over it. For the average user, there’s a lot of luck involved — that’s as diplomatic as I’m prepared to be.

The tragedy, as always, is that the people near the base of the triangle, the ones who do all the work and get the lowest pay rates, nurses, ambulance drivers, etc., are the ones that are left to face the problems and failed users.

I love the way Sarwar is pressing these issues. Anyone that defends the SNP on this is putting politics before public health.

Thank you very much , Fionan @ 12.07 pm, for sharing the devastating truth about the storm. We all needed to hear that. I certainly did. Wishing you all the best …

@ fionan: as wull said.

@ Fionan 12.07pm as Wull says please be careful and look after yourself , I would like to say it is unbelievable that the MSM are NOT widely reporting the misery and damage that folk in Aberdeenshire are suffering and the inadequate and pathetic response from all sections of government and it appears from the energy companies
BUT I am sad to say this apparent non urgent and lackadaisical approach appears to be the norm now , this storm although uncontrollable was forecast and yet it appears there was NO PREPARITY work organised to rescue the situation or prepare for its possible damage

This strikes me as a similar situation to COVID , they run scenarios for preparedness of pandemics with all sorts of bluster and publicity to show people they are organised and ready then a couple of months later when the real thing happens they run about like headless chickens blundering about causing more damage than they will admit too

SURELY preparations for a pandemic would have looked at the inherent dangers of moving elderly people from a hospital without a check for COVID into a care home situation where the elderly and infirm had greatly reduced immune systems and where many had previous medical conditions

The ineptitude of the CLOWNS we have in HR and WM as politicians who represent us is now becoming more DANGEROUS AND DAMAGING to normal citizens , there is a GLARING INABILITY to prepare for future problems because they have no foresight or planning ability , and just like management in big companies they will not promote someone more intelligent than them because they show up their stupidity and become a threat to THEIR position

Sarissa says on 3 December, 2021 at 1:55 pm
“off topic, devolution in a nutshell:”

link to pbfcomics.com

Aye! Good one! Very apt!

@Hatuey 5.08 pm

I fully concur with the sentiment that Sturgeon should be politically defenestrated at the first available opportunity, but I think we should be careful about giving any credence to the “once in a generation” formulation, whether direct or indirect. It was always a deeply stupid thing to say for any nationalist politician to say, however much they caveated it.

However, it wouldn’t matter whether Sturgeon or any other politico actually believed in the principle (or agreed how long a political generation actually is!), because the only people qualified to decide when, how often and under what circumstances we exercise our self determination are the sovereign Scottish people.

How that self determination is exercised is ultimately a matter for us. At present the party of government in Scotland is firmly wedded to the “Gold Standard” S30 approved referendum route to independence, following the 2014 precedent. However, should circumstances change any nationalist worth their salt should be making it crystal clear to Westminster that any attempt to stymie #indyref2 or to place new conditions or barriers which are not approved by the Scottish people or their parliament is not legitimate.

This is where the gradualists in the SNP have failed for the past 7 years. The threat should be specific and time limited: honour the 2014 precedent or we switch to Plan B. It’s been obvious for some time of course that the SNP had no appetite for the fight, because the refused to put the matter of whether Holyrood was able to hold a referendum without a S30 order beyond legal doubt, and actively worked against Martin Keatings case which aimed to force their hand. As you point out their refusal to even discuss Plan B demonstrates that they are far too comfortable with the cosy devolutionary settlement and the sinecures it brings.

Only Alba and a few forlorn rebel voices within the SNP are pushing the case for Plan B and the use of plebiscitary elections. It’s important that they and we force the pace on the issue. If that doesn’t happen, we may find ourselves in the situation where 2039 comes and we still haven’t had #indyref2, never mind achieved independence.

Sturgeon’s departure – however welcome – won’t change anything if the SNP remains wedded to their current strategy and we can’t afford to bet the farm on the mainstream SNP membership reclaiming the party any time soon.

Republicofscotland @ 10:49 am

“Economist and indy activist Elisenda Paluzie, said that Sturgeon could not expect to take Scotland out of the union without some sort of political conflict from Westminster. She added that there’s a risk of postponing something forever, sounds familiar I say.”

And there is considerable danger in postponement and delay. Its a truism that if colonialism is not broken, the colonised nation itself will perish. We already have ‘a rusted (Scots) tongue and a moribund culture’, a consequence of three centuries and more of Anglicisation and cultural domination. We are left with only ‘the dregs of culture’; with colonialism the culture of the people is withering away and the nation with it, which is the objective of colonialism – ‘to make the territory not appear foreign to the colonizer’s eye’.

And, as the census tells us, Scots are being replaced at a rapid pace, which represents a further leakage of sovereignty every day, and that will continue so long as we have no control over Scotland’s borders, which is one of the most important responsibilities of any sovereignty nation and people.

Hud a bra’ night out in The Woodlands Hotel, at the Dundee Alba St Andrew’s Day celebration tonight.

Had a blether with Brian Topping from Fraserburgh, having a covid-delayed break in Dundee with his wife. Met up with a number of Team Yes Bus members and had a very illuminating blether with Stevie from the Crossgate Centre. When the SNP $h!† hits the fan, via the ECHR, we’d better all have brollies.
And to cap it all, I won a bottle of Cairn O’ Mohr raspberry wine (13.3%) in the raffle.

A fine night!

link to scottishparliament.tv

@Alf Baird 8.29 pm

“And, as the census tells us, Scots are being replaced at a rapid pace, which represents a further leakage of sovereignty every day..”

The last census from 2011 tells us what happened in the decade up to then. We’ll have to wait for the results of the next (delayed) census in 2022 to see whether the figures back up your claim that “native” Scots are being replaced, and what impact that might have on voting intentions. The big rise in the decade up to the 2011 was in EU and “rest of the world” immigrants, not English immigrants. The EU numbers in the decade since the last census will doubtless have been impacted by brexit.

A few points to ponder however:

1) Isn’t it pretty hard to extrapolate from the gross figures in the census to actual voting intentions “on the ground” of those who have immigrated to Scotland and stayed? We already know that there is very little in the way of polling evidence, but assuming that “X” thousand people from the rest of the UK come to Scotland every year, how do we know what proportion of them stay a few years then move elsewhere / back to England every year? Many of course will become permanent residents, but I wonder what proportion come to support an independent Scotland? What about their (Scots born) children, many of whom will presumably self identify as Scottish?

2) The 2011 census showed 83% of Scots were native born. The decrease from 2001 census (87%) was attributable to EU and rest of the world immigration, not English, Welsh and NI immigration. If you take a view that inward migration is an existential threat to Scottish independence then I doubt anything is going to convince you otherwise, but if all the immigration over the past few decades were such a threat, why has pro-independence sentiment increased in the same time? Was it all from native born Scots? People keep quoting one poll that found “rest of UK” voters split 70/30 against independence in 2014, but how accurate is that..? Does it still hold even if it was accurate?

Wouldn’t we be able to see an impact in things like the Social Attitudes Survey over the same timescale? We keep hearing that most Scots self identify as Scottish rather than British, so if we’re being flooded or diluted, that would logically be decreasing wouldn’t it? Or does it just mean that for too many Scots, being Scottish is just like being from Yorkshire or Kent but with a more colourful history?

What about the fact that pro-independence sentiment in younger age groups is overwhelmingly pro-independence in comparison with other age groups?

The supposed (asserted?) “dilution” of native born by people from elsewhere (in our case presumably the nativists concern is chiefly with “unionist” inclined people from England/Wales/NI more than the EU and the rest of the world immigrants) is hardly unique to Scotland in recent years/decades.

I don’t think we can make any direct correlation that immigration = leakage of sovereignty. Much like the entire nativist prospectus I still think it’s largely a confection to excuse lack of political will and courage on the part of the overwhelming majority of the Scots population which remains native born.

We’re not colonised, or hoodwinked, we’re just “frit” and not convinced of that the cost benefit analysis of unionism versus independence favours independence (yet?).

Conjuring the ghost of the Scots nation itself perishing due to non-native immigrants sounds pretty hysterical to most ordinary Scots. Worse still it looks and feels pretty UKIP-y. Note that I’m not saying that all the fans of nativism out there are xenophobic bigots, but as we saw (and continue to see) in England, once you let the ethnic nationalist genie out of the bottle, it’s pretty hard to put back in.

Andy Ellis writes:

“I don’t think we can make any direct correlation that immigration = leakage of sovereignty”

TBH, it no longer winds me up that anybody can make a statement so directly at odds with 10,000 historical precedents, not to mention the personal, lived experience of everybody from the smartest and richest to the densest and most disinterested.

But it does interest me why anybody chooses to persist with such “moon howling”, to borrow from Andy’s own lexicon.

I guess we will wait a long time to discover just what it is that the pedlars of such Grade 1 tripe are seeking to construct here. It certainly isn’t a humane, prosperous, law-abiding, healthy, comfortable, happy homeland for the Scots.

@John Main 2.45 pm

Historical precedents like what John? Since there are 10,000 according to you, doubtless you can show your working? Personal lived experience of what….being a xenophobic, regressive, ethnic nationalist as opposed to a pro multi cultural, progressive, civic nationalist?

I know which I’d rather be, and what the better nation we should all be aspiring to ought to look like. If you really think the current UK or a future independent Scotland isn’t or won’t be a “humane, prosperous, law-abiding, healthy, comfortable, happy homeland” because *immigrants* it says a lot about you, none of it good.

@Hatuey 2.34 pm

I agree that it is certainly possible that immigration in certain circumstances might skew the politics of independence. There is certainly some evidence – though in truth not that much apart from a few polls – to suggest that in 2014 the fact that non native born Scots voted 70/30 against independence may have been enough to override a narrow Yes vote from native born Scots.

Of course, it’s pretty hard to prove that outcome, because we also don’t know what the impact of trying to limit the electoral franchise to exclude significant numbers of non-native born voters would have been.

There’s no guarantee that the terms of #indyref1 would have been the same if that’s what Salmond had tried to negotiate with Cameron in 2012. Nor can we know what the impact would have been on other voters – particularly “soft Yes” voters – if the pro-independence campaign had been seen as promoting ethnic nationalism not civic nationalism in 2012-14. It’s surely hard to see argue that the campaign would have been the same on that basis?

The key to securing a majority for independence is convincing enough of the overwhelming majority of Scots who are native born to grow a pair. The Scottish electorate in the December 2020 GE was 4,208,923. The last census put native born Scots at 83% of the population.

Even if that figure has decreased by the time the 2022 census figures come in, the way to offset any potential for perceived undue influence from non-native born voters is to ensure that even if immigrants vote heavily against independence, it won’t matter in the general scheme of things because any self identifying people with any self respect ought to be capable – indeed clamorous for – the benefits of statehood.

If that isn’t the case, we shouldn’t be blaming the immigrants or throwing the civic nationalist baby out with the bath water, we should be recognising that we just don’t want it enough and haven’t made a strong enough case. The narrative that we are colonised, or hoodwinked by unionist media, or doon hauden by 300 years of cultural imperialism is a cop out. Plenty of other peoples have achieved independence facing much higher hurdles and with few of our advantages. We’re not still part of the UK because “we wuz robbed”, but because we revere the chains that bind us too much to take our independence rather than ask for it.

Andy Ellis & Hatuey

Two far-sighted sages, or two cheeks of the same arse?

I get it. I really do. You are not going to abandon the virtue-signalling flights of fancy that you have convinced yourselves defines the moral high ground. Even if it costs Scotland that objective that is supposed to be the entire point of this site, her independence.

But the world has moved on from 2014. Even your beloved EU is building walls and unrolling the barbed wire. Even the politicians and careerists who run your imaginary European utopia are adopting the policies of authoritarianism to sideline the people you would claim they serve.

The pursuit of Scottish Independence is pointless if it will not further the prospects and prosperity of ordinary Scots. Telling Scots that Indy can only work if we get outsiders to seize the opportunities thus offered is a sure-fire way of maintaining the majority for No.

I would say “go figure” but I doubt that you can. You have too much emotion and ego invested in your fallacies to be able to abandon your illusions.

The problem with this debate is that people are jumping to one extreme or another and creating conflict and disagreement where there needn’t be any. The sensible majority view is in the middle.

It isn’t ethnic nationalism to want to change the franchise, Andy. And, on the other extreme, let me assure you that the majority of Scottish people don’t want independence for reasons of culture and language — those sort of arguments have no place in this country and are at times indistinguishable from the most vile forms of nationalism.

That said, Andy’s optimistic view that the steady weakening of the pro-indy vote by immigrants can readily be overcome (by doing more to win the argument, etc.) is fanciful and wilfully ignorant of the basic arithmetic which you can find here; link to ons.gov.uk

Simply put, it might have been possible to win that argument a decade or so ago, Andy, but since then the anti-indy forces have won many thousands of votes without making any argument at all, simply because of continuing immigration. They don’t need to do a thing except stall us and at some point, I’d say in the next 10 years, it essentially becomes impossible for us to win a referendum.

It’s complicated though and it would help if everybody stopped pretending otherwise and stopped framing this in ideological terms.

Hatuey @ 5:51 pm

“Scottish people don’t want independence for reasons of culture and language”

You misunderstand the importance of culture and language, which is what gives a people their national consciousness, without which there can be no desire for the national independence of a people.

This is a quote from Grouse Beater’s new book, with Gareth discussing his cousin, the journalist Iain Christie from Edinburgh, who established a new national broadcasting service in Mozambique after the country’s independence from the Portuguese colonisers:

“a lot of the station’s output was about ridding the populace of a colonial mentality, giving them confidence in their own language and culture.”

Independence is about ridding a people of a colonial mentality, which has everything to do with their culture and language, and the culture and language which is being imposed on them.

@John Main 5.11 pm

I don’t support EU membership though John, which kind of spoils much of your rant I realise. However, the majority of Scots still do, so it’s them you’ve got to convince.

The pursuit of Scottish independence is pointless if it leads t the kind of dystopia envisaged by the blood and soil types in here. I’m not: “Telling Scots that Indy can only work if we get outsiders to seize the opportunities thus offered..”, I’m saying that we can’t and shouldn’t disenfranchise a section of New Scots. Stu Campbell’s original objections still apply. Not one of the nativist claque have satisfactorily rebutted them, yet they just love using this place as a forum to fluff their regressive nativism. They don’t think they can win the argument, so they want to take their ball home.

Abandoning civic nationalism will be the death of the movement: it’s not my illusion, or virtue-signalling flights of fancy that I’ve convinced myself defines the moral high ground. Nativists are just as likely to cost us independence as British nationalists.

Hi all,

Just popped in to post a link to reviews of Robert F. Kennedy Jnr’s book, ‘The Real Anthony Fauci…’

Of the 1,460 ratings recorded so far, 95% award the book 5 stars.

🙂

link to amazon.com

@Andy Ellis 8:47pm
Yes that’s the same Alf et al that have never held a weapon or been on a combat service situation. I am glad the Army are helping in rural Aberdeenshire. The hardship of the people there needs urgent address. Meanwhile it’s virtual signalling and secretive surveys of children. Sums up the priorities of the SG. The anal sexual history of bairns or actually doing something useful for once.

Tannadice Boy says:
4 December, 2021 at 9:07 pm
@Andy Ellis 8:47pm
Yes that’s the same Alf et al that have never held a weapon or been on a combat service situation.

Reply

What does that have to do with anything?

Tannadice Boy says:
Although I would rather talk about the dilution of Scottish children’s rights.

Reply
What’s stopping you?

Ian B , just a wee wave Hello – I wouldn’t hang around here the Windbag of Wings are working hard to make it unreadable, wee Ruby is right!

One for the simple minds out there.

All the things she / her said.

“We often have to act before the data is telling us there is a problem”

Aye, that’s covid related, but mind that we aw hud tae wait tae see whit the plainly obvious negative implications of yon material change in circumstance of the clusterfuck of “Brexit” were.
Duly noting that when that data did become available heehaw was actually acted on…

@Dorothy Devine 10:18pm
Unreadable not to me. Avoiding the protection of Scottish children’s rights
Where have you been the last few days?. What do you know about that?. Read Wings and learn.

@Grouse Beater 10:31 pm
That’s your worse post. However I forgive you. I try not to criticise Independence supporters. Evidence please of I am a liar.

Andy, you’re right, it would require a lot of work on the numbers involved. I did say it was complicated.

If you look at ONS data on “Net migration to Scotland from overseas”, though, in some years it is over 20 thousand per year. Over ten years thats around potentially 200 thousand voters, 70% of which might be expected to be opposed to independence. That’s 140 thousand “no” votes handed to Unionists on a plate for nothing.

That’s significant but we aren’t finished. Net migration from the rest of the UK is typically of the order of 10 thousand per annum. From memory, the survey research suggested around 80% of those were opposed to independence… another 80 thousand votes gifted to unionists over ten years.

Of course, we could go further and paint a much bleaker picture. Net migration is calculated by deducting emigration from immigration totals, and so we are not only neglecting to factor in the loss of Scots born emigrants who are more likely statistically to support independence, we are in essence factoring them in in a way that downplays the seriousness and scale of the problem.

On the basis of all that, I think it would be very conservative to suggest that unionists are effectively winning around a quarter of a million votes per decade, free of charge, simply because of trends in migration and the terms of the franchise.

From memory, only about 3.5 million people voted in 2014. Why on earth would you want to disadvantage yourself by keeping the franchise and gifting unionists a quarter of a million votes for free?

Nobody can accuse me of being anti-immigration when just last week a devoted about 10 million words to explaining the economic benefits of immigration. And please believe me, nobody cares less about Scottish culture (whatever the fuck that is) and speaking “broons” than I do.

There’s no contradiction here either. Immigration clearly plays a very different part in a country that is hamstrung, such as we are, as compared to the almost entirely positive part it can play in a fully independent country that has levers over its economy.

Hatuey says:

Nobody can accuse me of being anti-immigration when just last week a devoted about 10 million words to explaining the economic benefits of immigration. And please believe me, nobody cares less about Scottish culture (whatever the fuck that is) and speaking “broons” than I do.

Reply
I read your posts about immigration and decided you were completely bonkers.

You are so pro-immigration you come across as anti-Scottish. Is there a particular culture that you care bout?

What do you mean by speaking ‘broons’?

George Ferguson risks getting a visit from the cops for threatening behaviour.

@Ruby 11:17pm
Simple answer don’t call people a liar. Problem solved. I voted for Independence and I thought I was on an Independence site. A free speech site. Grousebeater and Alf et al are promoting armed insurrection. I am not. No chance of Police Scotland investigating them?. Apparently not. Left wing academics are exempt from their unwarranted aspersions on other people. The state of Scotland.

Hatuey says:
4 December, 2021 at 11:34 pm
Thanks for confirming that I’m pro-immigration to the point of being bonkers, ruby.

As for speaking “broons”, I believe it’s formally called “scots” but to my mind it’s indistinguishable from slang.

Reply

It’s not the language or culture of someone like Boris Johnson.

Is his language and culture more to your liking?

Anything wrong with slang?

@Ruby 11:43pm
Goodness me. We are all going to die. Omicron whatever. This site has been taking over by who?. But you have convinced me it’s has been taken over. You made the basic mistake of contravening the first promise.

@Ruby 12:00am
Pissed no, pissed off totally. When I see what’s happening in Scotland what rationale thinking person wouldn’t be. But you can arrange my arrest. My defence will be I was arguing against armed insurrection. It will be an experience in jail. Here endeteth the Union if that happens but go for it Ruby.

The idea that we can will slang into being a language is basically woke extremism of the sort that is turning our kids into fearful, pampered, morons. It slots right into the doctrine that says don’t let the children compete in any way because not coming first might upset them…

Fuck all that.

Standards matter. Getting things right matters. Telling a kid it’s okay to think 2 + 2 = 5 because you don’t want to upset him is nuts. The same goes for grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc.

Slang is fine but it isn’t a language. Our language is English.

@Hatuey 11.03 pm

“From memory, only about 3.5 million people voted in 2014. Why on earth would you want to disadvantage yourself by keeping the franchise and gifting unionists a quarter of a million votes for free?”

It’s true that it’s complex, so let’s look at the maths in detail then. Lets assume that the turnout in a future indyref (or plebiscitary election) will be the same as #indyref1 at 84.6%. From a referendum electorate of 4.2 million that gives you 3.56 million votes, requiring 1.78 million for a 50% + 1 majority.

Almost 9% of the electorate are English born and around 1% from Wales & NI, so around 345,000 votes assuming the same turnout. 3% are EU nationals, so around 106,000.

I think we can safely assume EU voters may now be more inclined to vote Yes than they were in 2014, so lets assume they vote 70/30 in favour of independence next time round. If you plug the figures above into a spreadsheet, even if “rest of UK voters” split 70/30 against independence, “native born” Scots can secure a Yes result with 51% of their vote (it would produce an overall total of 50.239% Yes and 49.707% No).

The thing is the migration figures you quote aren’t static, and there’s no easy way to track how many of those who move to Scotland from the rest of the UK stay. Many may only be here for a year or two for work and may subsequently return or move to another part of the UK and then form part of the emigration total from Scotland.

In the end, nothing has really changed since this matter was first raised. Changing the franchise is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. It kills civic nationalism stone dead and has real political and probably electoral costs, all because a vocal and politically regressive minority in the movement have bought in to the facile colonisation narrative. If we’re honestly saying we can’t muster 51% of “true bloods” to support their own self determination, why should we expect New Scots to pull our chestnuts from the fire?

Tannadice Boy says:
I am not your deep fried Mars bar wrapped in a haggis supper sort of Independence supporter

Reply

Are you more the ‘haute cuisine’ type of independence supporter who doesn’t speak ‘broons’?

Hatuey says:
5 December, 2021 at 2:43 am

Slang is fine but it isn’t a language. Our language is English.

Reply

Oh aye!

Slang & lots of non English words are part of our language & culture.

Just out of interest what is your ‘raison d’être’ for posting
here on Wings?

What is it you are trying to achieve?

Hatuey says:

Does changing the franchise definitely mean the end of civic nationalism?

Reply

Enough about the ***** franchise.

It’ll be our ‘colonial masters’ who decide on the franchise if they ever give us permission to hold a referendum!

Any views on the school sex survey?

@Hateuy 10.32 am

Perhaps I’m just less sanguine than you about being on a par with the xenophobes and bigots who drove the brexit fiasco? We know what to expect from the Tory establishment and the British nationalist elites: civic nationalism as a project is supposed to provide a starkly different alternative. Nativism is simply descending to their level.

Sadly it’s quite apparent that too many of those soiling the BTL comments in here are intensely relaxed about plumbing those depths.

I don’t think you can realistically call Scottish nationalism civic nationalism any more if it is grounded on removing the franchise from a significant proportion of residents of Scotland on the basis of their birth place.

I know all the nativists hate me bringing it up (it certainly seems to trigger them, which is part of the fun of doing it!), but the founder of this site has been quite open about his distaste for blood and soil nationalism. He decried “kilts-and-bagpipes-and-Gaelic cultural nationalism of the type that predated the SNP’s electoral success” and labelled franchise limitation as immoral and self defeating. Yet the sub Siol nan Gaidheal outriders all remain happy to come on here banging on about colonisation, and promoting their dystopian vision.

The views of the MSM while interesting are largely irrelevant. They weren’t on our side last time but the pro-independence vote went up from the high 20’s % to 45% in 2 years. They won’t be on our side next time either: so what? It isn’t having an overwhelmingly hostile MSM that’s responsible for denying us independence, any more than it’s a product of our not all being able to talk like the Broons.

The Yes vote has not moved appreciably since within a margin of error since 2014, despite brexit, BoJo as PM, the failed political assassination of Alex Salmond and prosecution and jailing of independence activists and the shameful mishandling of a global pandemic which resulted in the innecessary deaths of thousands of Scots.

The colonisation schtick and the confident assertions that “we’re being swamped” are two cheeks of the same socially and politically conservative arse, however much the sad inadequates pushing them insist otherwise. It’s political and electoral poison.

@Ruby 10.39 am

It’s not that hard to discern surely? It’s a debate aimed at analysing the issue and changing the minds of those who hold the opposite view. that’s allowed surely?

Of course people are quite entitled to their views. Nobody is trying to silence them, apart it seems from a select cadre of low voltage contributors here who seem to be triggered by me having the temerity to contribute and contributing little or nothing else but repetitive posts telling me and others to shut up, or worse…you and Dotty Devine to the fore as per.

Nobody is stopping you having a detailed discussion on the schools sex survey. Fill your boots. We’re not obliged to contribute. I won’t be posting ad nauseam telling you and others to stop discussing it though, or abusing you for doing so.