Send In The Clowns
The SNP conference opened today with Stephen Flynn (primary interest: the career of Stephen Flynn), Karen Adam (primary interest: any shiny or jangly object) and Susan Aitken (primary interest: MOAR PIES), which ought to be more than enough by itself to convincingly illustrate that these are not serious people.
But if you somehow still weren’t certain, there’s this:
That, readers – from Flynn, supposedly the party’s sharpest talent – is political strategising on the level of a football manager wearing his lucky underpants for a cup tie. David Cameron didn’t grant the 2014 referendum because he HAD to, he did it because he saw a political opportunity to kill off independence for decades by delivering a strong victory for the Union.
In the end he got away with the gamble, much more narrowly than he expected to, and no UK Prime Minister will make that mistake again. (Especially as Cameron foolishly DID follow it up with a repeat performance, over Brexit, and this time lost the vote and ended his political career.)
What’s embarrassing is not that Swinney and Flynn are publicly endorsing such an absolute joke of a “strategy”, but that they know it’ll be enough to see the SNP returned to government, where the strategy will fail (whether by not securing the majority or by doing so and having Keir Starmer briskly tell them to sod off), and they can safely trouser fat Holyrood salaries for another half-decade with all the pressure off.
But what if conference delivers a surprise defeat for the leadership during this afternoon’s debate? We don’t expect it to – conference is stuffed with the payroll vote these days, and holding it in Aberdeen yet again has made it as hard as possible for rebels to turn up en masse, short of booking a leaky bothy near Dounreay – but let’s allow it as a possibility just for the sake of argument.
What happens then?
Well, as things stand, not much. Anyone with even a shred of honour and dignity would resign as leader if their policy on the party’s core aim was thrown out by conference, but the chances of Swinney doing so and triggering a leadership contest seven months from a general election are close to nil.
(Not that it’d be much of a contest anyway – with Kate Forbes out of the picture, Flynn would likely be the only candidate who could secure enough nominations under the demanding new rules. But since he’s fully backing the Swinney policy it’d be a farcical and pointless replacement.)
So the SNP would limp into the election with an indy policy that its leader didn’t believe in (whether that was Swinney or Flynn), which is a pretty fatally non-credible stance. Every debate and interview would see them challenged, quite justifiably with “But you don’t even believe in this policy yourself, do you?”
And in the highly optimistic event that that didn’t damage them, how likely is that 50%+1 target to be achieved next May?
The combined SNP+Green+Alba vote across the last 10 polls averages to 42.4% – miles short of the mark, and with absolutely no sign of notable growth. If you go all the way back to the death of Alex Salmond – a year tomorrow – the average is 42.1%. If you project that forward seven months, we’re on course for… 42.6%.
In the long term, the underlying basis of the rebel amendment is the only remotely credible way forward, and has been since Wings proposed it almost exactly five years ago. But neither outcome of today’s debate will do anything to help next year.
Stupidly, the amendment they’ve actually lodged only specifies next year’s election as a “de-facto referendum”, when it should be EVERY election from now on. Otherwise if pro-indy parties fail to break 50% (as they almost certainly will), Unionists can say “Okay, well you said it was just this year, so you’ve had your second indyref and you’re DEFINITELY not getting another one for 30 years”.
It’s also phrased incredibly weakly, proposing only that “consideration should be given” to adopting the plan, when the SNP constitution still officially dictates that conference DECIDES policy. It’s a meek request when it should have been a flat-out coup.
Swinney will therefore have an excuse to cling on if defeated, and the rebels will have blown their best chance to capitalise on the widespread discontent within the party at current strategy. But in truth with no figurehead to coalesce around they’re in no position to take advantage of a victory even if they achieved one.
This afternoon’s debate, then, will be a pantomime. Either outcome will damage the SNP’s credibility, which is already at rock bottom. And no amount of lucky underpants are going to get them, or the wider indy movement, out of it.
I suspect the “consideration should be given” bit was required by the motion filtering team to grudgingly let it get as far as conference. If it had been any firmer it wouldn’t have survived.
Nobody saw the 2011 HE outcome coming, not even Alex Salmond.
But fuckwit Flynn endorses a fluke as a strategy.
He and his fellow follically challenged ‘leader’ know there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of this re-occurring.
And when it doesn’t they can just point to the 2026 HE result and say ‘hey, but the people didn’t give us a majority so we can’t do anything about it!”
Then they just settle down for another 5 years suckling at the tit of the public purse.
“The combined SNP+Green+Alba vote across the last 10 polls averages to 42.4% – miles short of the mark, and with absolutely no sign of notable growth.”
True. But the supporters of “Liberation Scotland” candidates should be added to the 42.4%.
That will bring the average up to 42.5%!
It is just never gonna happen through a devolved parliament – to Scotland,
We should have a actual Scotland parliament. And no point having faux representatives for Scotland registered under England.
So it really does not matter whom fakes being a Scottish representative. Voting in a rigged system not in Scotlands favour,
The SNP should have started the de- colonisation of Scotland process years ago.
Westminster encroaches into Scotland and its laws through the devolved parliament back doors.
Beggar the treaty of union articles and of ” One Same Parliament of Great Britain hereafter ” propaganda.
An supposed international treaty that has been breach repeatedly time and again by Westminster parliament
That treaty is for the fairies,
Voting in Scotland is not a democracy.
SNP manifestos are written by the deputy leader and signed off by the leader. There is no requirement whatsoever to take any account of what conference votes for. The party is thus an autocracy, just like most other political parties in the UK.
If SNP rebels want to get serious about independence, they would need to replace the leader with one that is prepared to democratise the party, but there are not enough activists left for this plan to succeed and, even if it did, there are no credible candidates for them to put forward and, even if they found one, it would take very many years for the necessary reforms to make any difference.
The SNP needs to be consigned to the dustbin of political history before it inflicts any further damage or delay to the cause of Scottish independence.
The independence movement doesn’t need the SNP’s permission to turn the regional list vote for every Holyrood election into a vote for independence. We just need to organise, publicise and execute. Liberate Scotland is attempting to achieve this objective.
As part of this strategy, it needs to be made clear that the task of negotiating the divorce settlement and setting up an independent Scotland in the event that a majority votes for independence via the regional list vote should be the responsibility of those who advocated this strategy (Liberate Scotland), not the responsibility of whatever party or coalition forms the Scottish Government. Their job should be to run the Scottish Government whilst the separation is negotiated by Liberate Scotland.
Stu,
Some interference, when I just posted, it got covered in blue writing saying,
Translate into Malteese.
To be fair, Maltese would make about as much sense as most of your contributions James. Ta’ xejn!
Mr BIG MAN the Franchise FANNY trying to bully and intimidate an elderly woman who has recently lost her husband through long term illness , as a regular poster you are well aware that James Cheyne is an elderly female using an old tablet to access the site and post comments , she has posted about it often enough
Does it make you feel good denigrating and insulting an elderly females contribution to the site , she wasn’t even talking to you you self obsessed self opinionated arsehole , she was directing her comment to Stuart Campbell the OWNER of the site or have you taken over the running of the site fae yer pal STUEY
Is this the way you speak to your elderly mother or your mother in law or is this just your progressive middle class upbringing showing itself, will you go to one of your dinner parties and brag to your middle class friends about how you demeaned and derided an elderly widow who was not even talking to you
YOU are beneath contempt
@twatbynametwatbynature
You’re one of the biggest trolls and abusers soiling BTL in this place, so I won’t be taking any moral lessons from barely verbal pompous arse like you.
“James Cheyne’s” claimed identity and issues (even if true) are their own concern, and absolutely not pertinent to the fact that they spend inordinate amounts of their time derailing every thread in this place with wall to wall BS droning on about their hot takes on the Treaties of Union that few care about and even fewer agree with.
the ones really deserving of contempt in this place are you and the other like James and the usual suspects who have contrived to make what used to be a lively and enjoyable BTL comments section a desert of blood and soil nativists and sub-Trumpian regressive anti-immigrant ranters and “scotland as Colony” obsessives.
Wind yer neck in ya tube.
TH @ 1.57
Oh dear- obviously hit a raw nerve there!
Duck behind the table to avoid the launched teddy-bear, and keep yer head down as there is a rattle incoming following on close behind from “A pram called Milky Toast”..
🙂
YL @ 8.52am As usual the Franchise FANNY likes to proclaim that he knows the thoughts and beliefs of everyone when he DECLARES ” Treaties of Union that few care about and even fewer agree with”.
His continual quoting of what SC opinions and views are as if everyone should hold the same opinions and views is obsessive and creepy as is his arse kissing
The FANNY wasn’t even in Scotland when the 2014 ref took place , he returned HOME as a white flighter when the hordes coming over the channel became apparent , he apparently used to run a blog but shut it down because NO ONE was interested in his boring repetitious pish
He claims to be Scottish but like SC and others he is quite happy for anyone from anywhere to USURP Scots ability to regain our independence, anyone who disagrees is deemed a BLOOD and SOIL MOONHOWLING NATIVIST
He and his fellow Scotland HATERS like to quote the FAKE results of the ref that Scots bottled it but they forget the evidence that SCOTS voted 52.7% FOR INDEPENDENCE
@twatbynametwatbynature 3.11pm
Nothing stopping you producing the evidence showing your woo-woo view represent the majority bud: any evidence will do. Polling numbers, support for parties advancing similar views, learned academic, legal and constitutional articles and commentary backing up your quixotic views.
We’ll wait….. {insert tumbleweed GIF here].
In truth of course, you can’t even convince Rev Stu (whose BTL comments you and the other moonhowlers are quite happy to hi-jack of course) of the validity of your case. I’ve never claimed to know or represent everyone, just made the glaringly obvious observation that my mainstream views are shared by the overwhelming majority, which you’ve never been able to challenge still less demonstrate is false.
None of you have ever really recovered from the absolute fisking Stuey gave of the blut und boden case some years ago now. It rips your knitting something awful, but still you’re happy to use his site in a failed attempt to drum up support for your regressive nativism
How’s that working out for you? 🙂
Are other posters having problems posting comments over the last few months.
From Gateway, to missing words, to extra sentences, miss spelling, comments disappearing into the ether and now to translate to a different language covering the post, instead of posting.
No, not seen that James but don’t post much
Loving the “Primary Interests” comment, especially the “shiny or jangly objects”.
Only minor point I’d draw attention to is the suggestion that Lord Cameron’s political career ended with his Brexit referendum disaster. As we have seen, if you’re in the “correct” political circles of any Party you can only ever fail upwards. So, the noble Lord was speedily reintroduced to the magic circle of the privileged ellite in the HoL to participate once more in the then government. And how many times has Lord Mandleson reappeared from his crypt to mess with our lives. Ex PM Anthony Lyndon Blair, the Identity Document enthusiast, has he ceased to pull political strings? (Please, no ribald comments about “Tony pulling Kier’s wire”).
These professional politicos are like ongoing cases of Herpes … the sores may disappear for a season, however they just always pop back up again.
There can be no hope in this professional class of career polticos, with them it’ll always be one hand washes the other.
Both Blair and Starmer have been reported in the press as being gay and or gay relationships.
Blair in a public toilet in London is reported to have appeared in court whilst queer Starmer has press about associations with Ukranian male models
So no, the quip about Blair pulling Starmer’s wire is nor missed. But where’s Mandy?
As a Nationalist, life long supporter of Independence, former member/CA office bearer/candidate of that wretched abomination fashioned by Nicola Sturgeon in her own image, I find no pleasure in writing that I sincerely wish that the SNP and all those still associated with it would just f**k off.
RIP Alex
I’ll tell you what I heard was a lot of talk about more powers to be given to Holyrood, piss off Independence is the goal not more powers.
GM.
Not having any problems posting elsewhere. Just on wings. And not new to wings with this old technology either,
However not sure how to fix it, if it is at this end as, I given it, and do not know codes or passwords.
Still, only happening on wings,
Manifestos,
Does any political party follow them, Keir Starmer doesn’t, I do not remember him mentioning ID cards, raising taxes, not raising taxes, or him mentioning age disrimination.
They Seem to run along the same lines as SNP given mandates ignored.
It will be very interesting to see what happens if a Right Wing majority Reform government take over in London. If Reform get a foot hold in Scotland then I would expect the SNP to be squeezed for every penny and a every policy. I wouldn’t expect London to allow them to live in ‘splendid isolation’.
With the Union at the forefront of British politics and the Left Wing in a civil war, scattered and leaderless. It could lead to the abolition of the gravy boat and the he affirming of the Union of Kingdoms.
Reforms intentions are to overhaul the whole British government machinery. The future looks so bright you have to wear shades.
I’m not so sure many share your worldview Mark: seems more like rose tinted spectacles than shades you’re wearing. Reform may split the British nationalist vote in Scotland which could be a plus for the independence movement if it knows how to capitalise on the split, but it’d be interesting to see where Reform support in Scotland comes from.
Doubtless most is from disaffected Scottish Tories and the loyalist fringes, but if the rest of the UK is anything to go by, some of their support will also come from disaffected left of centre and centrist voters.
As we’ve all seen demonstrated in here on a regular basis, there’s an unattractive, regressive blood and soil element infecting the independence movement: anti immigrant, anti EU, pro Kremlin, Jockistinians: a veritable rag-tag basket of deplorables to add to the “usual” unionist suspects who will never, ever be reconciled to independence.
As Stu mentioned on X just recently:
Swinney says that we can’t achieve independence without the UK government’s consent. 20 seconds later he says he believes in the sovereignty of the Scottish people. Pick one or the other.
link to x.com
It’s not the rise of Reform we have to be worried about, it’s the fact that the engine of the independence movement are at heart a bunch of milquetoast devolusionists who think we need the gracious permission of Westminster to exercise our right of self determination.
@Andy – in light of the Supreme Court judgement in 2022, which also ruled on the right of self determination in the Scottish context as well as the powers of the Scottish parliament, what would ‘exercising the right to self determination’ actually look like? It would at minimum involve persuading a large number of people in civil society, business, public institutions etc not to obey the law. I think it would take an awful lot to pull that off.
It must come as a shock to know that there are those who want to look after their own people – and not the “immigrants”, the EU, or the Ukranians.
Aidan,
The UK SC ruling related to whether the devolved parliament had the right to call a referendum without agreement. Unsurprisingly in a union state such as the UK the answer was no, despite the precedent of the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012 and the (at least) implied convention that Westminster would not reject a clear mandate given to the devolved parliament by a majority of the Scots electorate.
Either people are democrats, or they aren’t. There is no convention that a super majority is required to obtain independence. Sure, it’d be great if 99% of Scots voted Yes as Norwegians did in their independence vote in 1905, but unless the generality of the people accept that it is “fair” to impose some arbitrary minimum hurdle like 55% or 60% or 66.6%, the danger is the refusal comes to be seen as undemocratic and corrosive to the general validity of the ones making the refusal (which is waht happened after the failed 1979 referendum).
If after achieving a majority vote for independence, the Scots people don’t somehow exercise that right, or are denied it by the minority refusing to abide by the democratic decision, we’re in unknown territory. Pro indy people didn’t refuse to accept the 55% No vote in 2014 (they just didn’t acccept it was for ever), and Remain people didn’t refuse to accept the 52% Leave vote.
If the majority of Scots voters lack the balls to enforce the result then they can’t really complain if it doesn’t happen. Real nationalists won’t settle for being denied.
I keep hearing this, that somehow independence is being kept from the majority that want it.
If that is the case then why has nobody every answered the question I have asked several times.
Does anybody seriously think that another referendum would succeed right now? Personally I don’t
There isn’t going to be another referendum in any reasonable timescale though, so your point is moot. No British nationalist government will agree to hold one, and further to the SC decision that means it simply won’t happen.
That’s why “real” nationalists are pushing for the use of plebiscitary elections as a substitute, because they can’t be knobbled by Westminster in the same way. Sadly the current nationalist movement and leadership have conspired to produce a situation in which we appear to now have a popular majority in favour of independence according to some recent polls, but no real way of operationalising that majority in to concrete action.
As Swinney has just shown, he isn’t a real nationalist in any meaningful sense, he’s a devolusionist who has explicitly accepted that our self determination is in the gift of Westminster, and can be refused at their whim.
Independence will never be achieved therefore until such people are run out of the movement. It isn’t enough for the SNP to be defeated or hobbled, it has to be functionally destroyed as an electoral force in the same way the Irish people destroyed the previously dominant Irish Parliamentary Party after 1916.
At this point the delusional rum left in the SNP should just be honest with us and themselves and admit that their realistic prospectus for the future is (at best) devo-max.
So may I ask;
(Genuine question):
If you understandably want the SNP run out of town yet nail our only option to plebiscitary elections somehow inextricably muddled with referenda (ever increasing) bars then how exactly do you see it happening?
Forgive me if I’ve missed it but I haven’t seen any of your posts supporting anyone or any activist movements..
And if “stuff 300 years old” doesn’t matter anymore or is irrelevant does that mean there is some hidden timebar none of us are aware of?
I’d like to be brought up to speed if that’s the case so we can then review the antique invalibilty of Magna Carta, English parliamentary superiority to all intents over the crown, or heck Northern Ireland’s “province” existence given the original act of subsuming Ireland into the new “UK” is barely younger than the USA and way before the unification ov der Germans uber alles..
Asking for a friend whose currently “tilting at windmills”..
Perhaps it’s because these “activist” strategies are futile and any attempts to raise reasonable, sensible questions is met with a psychotic tirade of howling and abuse. The UN is not interested in the circumstances of the formation of the ToU in 1707, and is never going to be. Even if it were sensible to determine profound constitutional questions based on events of 300+ years ago, there are much bigger things going on in the word right now.
@Young Lochinvar
Plebiscitary elections and referenda are two different things. There’s no reasonable prospect of another referendum in any reasonable timescale, whatever Swinney and the diminishing band of true believers left in the SNP think.
That being the case, the only plausible route to independence is via securing a victory in plebiscitary elections and declaring independence whether Westminster agrees or not, unless you’re a fan of a popular uprising or Civil War à la Ireland in the 1920’s.
Folk who enjoy that kind of thing are free to tilt at constitutional windmills all they like, and for as long as they like. Who knows, they might even be successful: stranger things have happened. Interestingly, the fans of Salvo and the “Scotland as Colony” narrative always seem a bit shy about putting any timescale on when the UN and other external friends are somehow going to help drop independence in to our laps. Odd that.
As more realistic folks (including even Johhny Come Lately’s like Angus Brendan O’Neil most notably) have been pointing out, the SNP could have delivered plebiscitary elections at any point in the past decade by the simple expedient of collapsing the Holyrood government and precipitating a new Scottish GE on a specifically plebiscitary platform.
That platform doesn’t need to contain detailed policies, or represent parties in a coalition, or even parties that like each other: they’re standing on a single issue.
The $64,000 question of course is why the SNP and others in the movement haven’t made it so? Reticence about doing so may have been understandable when they didn’t think they still didn’t commanded a majority, but recent polls suggest there IS now a pro indy majority.
As Rev Stu and others have been saying for a while therefore, the only rational conclusion is that the SNP are not in fact interested in independence, they’re only interested in power for the sake of power. They actually prefer being the big fish in a devolutionary pond to being a small fish in some future independent Scottish government.
If bonnyrigg and Loanhead branch aka owen devo gray train thompsons branch is involved. Then it’s all a cover to keep the gravy flowing
For the 1st time in my life, I’m actually in agreement with the Unionist parties.
I wish to fuck the SNP stop harping on about “Independence”, they are doing fuck all but dangling rotten carrots to the gullible’s and to those unable to formulate a cohesive thought in their heads but to nod dimly in agreement that the SNP are the real vehicle to deliver independence for Scotland.
They get a majority at Holyrood this way: by forming with the encouragement and aid of the Electoral Commission a magic special List vehicle that insulates them from D’Hont consequentials on the List from winning constituencies. All those SNP2 votes will act like a tsunami on the List.
How do I know this? the last ISP party meeting I attended the leader Colette Walker told us about this special property of the Liberate vehicle with I4I & Sovereignty. She said that the Electoral Commission had contacted them, helped and encouraged them to do this.
The Electoral Commission is subverting Scottish Democracy.