Wings Over Scotland

The former SNP, and now independent, MP Margaret Ferrier was today arrested and charged with culpable and reckless conduct, a crime carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, for making a return train journey between Glasgow and London in September last year, two days after taking a coronavirus test.

This site has no comment to make on the charges, as it’s a live criminal matter, but a couple of troubling questions do arise from their existence.

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Before we got distracted by a(nother) completely gratuitious and unprovoked personal attack from a pro-indy blogger yesterday, this is what we’d been going to write about.

So since the SNP haven’t even bothered themselves to issue some sort of half-hearted token response to Boris Johnson’s declaration yesterday that he wouldn’t contemplate a second indyref before 2055, we might as well while away a few moments analysing the current state of Scottish Labour thinking just to cheer ourselves up.

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Hoo boy. Here we go again.

So, for the historical record: I have no belief whatsoever, earnest or otherwise, that I can get rid of Nicola Sturgeon in the next four months.

I’m an idiot with a website. I have no power. I haven’t been elected to anything and I’m not the commander of an army. Information to which I’m privy would get me put in jail if I published it, and would in itself have no power to remove Nicola Sturgeon anyway. The only people who can bring that about between now and May are Sturgeon herself or, collectively, the Scottish Parliament.

This site has for some time called for Sturgeon to resign because it is our belief that she’s going to have to anyway, on account of events over which we have no control or influence. Because of that it would be the responsible and conscientious thing for her to quit early enough that the SNP/independence movement had a chance to deal with the issue of her succession and regroup in plenty of time for this May’s election.

The remaining window of opportunity for that to happen is now getting very narrow. And the enemies of independence will be beside themselves with delight about it.

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On 31 January last year everything changed. On that date – the one when Scotland was officially dragged out of the EU because it was in the UK, despite the SNP’s repeated pronouncements that such a thing would not happen – sane people finally woke up and realised that Nicola Sturgeon had no plan to secure independence.

Almost a year later, a shrinking rump of less-sane people are still clinging desperately to a variety of irrational beliefs (there’s still a secret genius strategy waiting to be unveiled and we simply can’t give away our hand yet; Boris Johnson is an honourable democrat and will cave in if the SNP get a majority in May’s election; magic pixies on unicorns will descend from the heavens and grant Scotland its freedom), but most of us have now realised that 31 January 2021 will be just as pivotal as 31 January 2020.

Because an awful lot of stuff is about to happen in a hurry.

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Yesterday we noted that rational people arrive at decisions about things based on the facts, not the personalities of who else might support or oppose those things. But in the interests of balance, allow us to present the counterpoint.

Yesterday the SNP’s defence spokesman at Westminster cited the position of French National Front leader Marine Le Pen when arguing with someone who suggested that an independent Scotland should leave NATO.

As it happens, we agree with McDonald on NATO membership. It would be a pointless folly and an exercise in self-destructive virtue-signalling to leave an organisation which is willing to defend Scotland militarily for free because of its strategic location, and it would be extremely unpopular with the Scottish public (including SNP voters), no matter how much those on the left might wish otherwise.

His reasoning above, however, is a wretched embarrassment.

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Because 2020 is the maddest year in history, Ruth Davidson opened her contribution to Holyrood’s debate on the Brexit deal today with a lengthy quote from this website.

Because hey, why NOT, right?

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To mark today’s events, a look back at more innocent times.

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Drew Hendry won a lot of praise from Yes supporters a few days ago when he seized the Mace in the Commons. It’s not easy to speak in the chamber at any time and doing so in the face of hostility from the Speaker is challenging indeed.

The institution of Parliament is, by its very design, geared towards control by the British establishment. Not only are all sides uniformly hostile, but even the staff and officials, usually so polite and deferential, turn on you. So it was an intimidatory atmosphere in which he acted and it can’t have been easy.

But the idea that Scottish MPs should routinely require to suffer the scorn and derision poured upon their nation and their people is long past its sell-by date. Much of the vitriol shouted wouldn’t be countenanced elsewhere and just because it’s supposedly Honourable Members who act in that manner doesn’t justify it. There comes a time when words aren’t enough.

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Dr Tim Rideout is one of the most serious and respected people in the Yes movement and the SNP. As convener of the Scottish Currency Group he’s presently engaged in trying to solve the party’s self-inflicted weakness over its lack of a coherent currency policy, and he’s sufficiently highly rated by SNP members that earlier this month he was elected to the party’s Policy Development Committee.

So you might think he was entitled to a view on, well, development of policy.

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If this site seems to spend most of its time being angry at the SNP these days, that’s because we are. And a large part of that is because there’s very little that hacks us off more than people insulting our intelligence.

Smith’s tweet is just a crassly offensive flat-out lie. This week’s vote is NOT about “EU membership”. The United Kingdom hasn’t been a member of the EU since 31 January. We’ve already left and there’s no going back. The vote is about whether we leave with a sliver of a trade deal slightly reducing the self-inflicted harm, or the total catastrophe of no deal at all, and it’s just crushingly embarrassing for all concerned that Smith thinks so little of his own supporters as to believe he can “frame” it otherwise.

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There is no good position for the opposition parties in the House Of Commons to take on the impending Brexit deal vote this coming week.

It’s a terrible deal, and voting for it – as Labour will do – makes you look like an idiot, especially when it completely fails the “six tests” you swore never to vote for it without. On the other hand, time is absolutely up and were it to be somehow defeated the only alternative left to the deal would be a no-deal exit, which is the only thing worse.

Which makes this look simply pathetic.

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