The ginger stepchild
According to a new poll, fewer than a third of SNP voters even think independence is in the top three priorities facing Scotland.
It’s only five points ahead of immigration in fourth place, and seven ahead of housing. So it’s hardly surprising that the SNP aren’t bothering themselves about it. Their own support, like the party, is very comfortable with the way things are.
And in truth, that’s not much of a change.
Way back in November 2021, the percentage was two points lower at 29%, and indy was SNP voters’ fifth priority. (Immigration wasn’t even an option on the list four years ago, but is now a concern for over a quarter of the party’s voters.)
Support for the SNP has plunged by around a third since those heady days, but it’s clearly not because they’re failing to prioritise independence, which leaves only the party’s wretched performance in government as a plausible reason.
So we probably shouldn’t expect much difference if, as seems overwhelmingly likely, the SNP limps back into government next May with a lot fewer votes but more or less the same number of seats. The party has a strong financial disincentive to achieve independence, and its voters aren’t fussed either.
Both groups, in essence, are lying to each other. SNP voters profess their desire for independence but don’t really want anything done about it, and the party dutifully pretends to be working towards it to maintain the illusion – cherished by both the SNP and its voters – that there’s actually any difference between them and Scottish Labour.
(The only other big divergence in the poll, on Brexit, despite near-identical proportions of SNP and Labour voters voting Leave in 2016, is probably explained by the fact that Labour has lost a large chunk of support to Reform and most of it will likely be those. Although the near-total disinterest of SNP voters in crime and education is odd.)
Only the numbers tell the truth.
If the SNP never talk about independence and never ever ever explain the benefits it would bring and also the injustices wrought on Scotland by England then it’s not going to be a priority in the minds of the public. Of course the SNP are not a party of independence.
Well aye, it seems nobody (not just the NuSNP) will endeavour to articulate the significant point that most of the important priority issues on that list can only be properly addressed in a way that aligns with Scotland best interests until we return to self-governance.
We are in a position with those priority issues being so high on the list because all the major powers to manage and control these issues are reserved to London Rule, which has had pretty much continual governance by Parties that Scotland has electorally rejected for decades.
If the SNP was to do any of these things Independence would look better than the fake Union. Its not in the SNP interest when all they can do is complain about Westminster but never complain about the UK as a whole.
The SNP and its paying supporters are now just another generic political tribe that puts political identification/differentiation above any meaningful policy list. When political parties gave up their power to corporations and the rich, they gradually let their supporters down little by little so that the experience of political disenchantment was not really felt but the learned political helplessness of party supporters is there for all to see. All that’s left of governing as a form of public action is lying, a veneer of policy difference, and a slow descent into the functional stupefaction of those in leadership positions.
They have nothing to say to an audience who have lost the capacity to hear what’s being said.
Now the really important question is can I get through seven seasons of Mad Men between now and when it disappears from Netflix…
Which of these two issues do you think is the most important facing Scotland at this time?
A: “Scotland’s constitutional future” (question asked in new 2025 poll)
OR
B: “Whether or not Scotland becomes independent” (question asked in old 2021 poll)
Two different issues from two different polls separated in time by four years.
Some kind of oranges and apples conflation variation – in rhetoric known as “false analogy” or “Argument from spurious similarity”.
Also, the “new poll” question leads with “The economy and health are seen as the most important…” and lo and behold the top two most important issues put forward by respondents are the economy and health… subconscious pre-conditioning, perhaps.
The “Scotland’s constitutional future” issue in the “new poll” is so boring that I would have probably placed it just above “Something else” if I had been participating in that poll… and I am a raging Pict desperate for Scotland to reclaim her independence.
In case you’re wondering I wasn’t replying to your comment, PhilM. I posted it under your comment by mistake. Apologies.
“Although the near-total disinterest of SNP voters in crime and education is odd.”
Au Contraire! It actually makes perfect sense and explains a lot!
@ Dan at 3.38. You, I and others can see what is blindingly obvious – that all the ills that are high in poll answerers’ priorities can be solved by independence. [IF the new politicians in an independent Scotland want to, or are required to by direct democracy provisions, that is.]
This message should be plastered over every billboard and on every leaflet.
Aye Sarah, it is pretty obvious, so one has to question the motives of supposedly pro-indy politicians, activists, and bloggers that fail to state the case every single time the opportunity arises to stress that point, such as the above article, rather than just let it slide and give tacit approval to the validity of the polling stats that are produced from the thoughts of a uniformed electorate.
Re. Striving for the implementation of direct democracy, or at least the electorate having a better ability to hold to account our legislative politicians, and I guess in light of recent events, other power structures like executive, and judiciary.
Why are folk who believe in the sovereignty of the people asking for this to be implemented by those in power who will be reluctant to give up power and control.
Power isn’t given, it is taken, so surely better to focus efforts on electing decent folk that stand on a manifesto commitment to implement more direct democracy principles, and also a power of recall to their electorates should they err.
Recovery of the £150bn+ plundered by Westminster and other external corporate interests from an annexed Scotland each year would solve most of the funding crises across all policy areas.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Cart before horse, Alf.
First you have to get a solid majority of Scots to believe your number.
Then you have to get that same solid majority to believe that an Independent Scotland would still have that £150+ billion every year after Indy.
We all remember all too clearly similar promises being made about Brexit.
So it might be a good idea to stop wangin oan aboot that too.
Certainly not saying none of this is doable, Alf, but you really do need to consider a new and more credible approach. Just how many times does Rev Stu have to point out that the current one is dead before the penny drops?
The only in-credible thing here is the vast GDP-per-capita gap between a much poorer yet resource-rich Scotland and near neighbour independent states Norway, Ireland, Denmark etc, which proves how much the colonial plunder of Scotland is really worth – i.e. at least £150bn per annum.
Ah, c’moan noo, Alf.
It’s quite incredible that you sit on a claim like this one, that Scotland would be £150+ billion per annum better off after Indy, and never make any effort to publicise it.
Wouldn’t the money frittered away posing at the UN be better spent on a simple campaign to ensure that every Scot in the land knows that after Indy, he/she will be personally richer to the tune of 25 – 30 thousand pounds PA?
Along, of course, with a parallel campaign to deal with the resounding chorus of “Aye, Right!” that would result from such a claim?
It’s frankly incredible that I have never yet found a Scot who knows how much he/she is supposedly missing out.
The rev talks about supporting yoonionist parties in an attempt to destroy or remove the stench of the Scum Nonce Party in HR, he has also stated that it would enable the time and the benefit of building a new or revised independence party to fight for indy, but that didn’t stop him from posting articles and policies from ALBA’S Kenny MacAskill which were and still are mirrors of the snp’s FAILED route to indy or Ash Regan
YET he has and is totally ignoring a NEWLY formed united independence fighting PARTY in Liberate Scotland consisting of determined no holds barred individuals desperate for Scotland’s independence
The problem, TH, is that if Liberate Scotland gets TOO much attention and – God forbid- gets the mass backing of indigenous Scots… well, fuck me, that might mean the end of the Union.
Aye, like you and Dan, and Alf tae, I think…a hae ma douts.
I’m surprised that women (and children’s) rights come in at 3% or less.
Perhaps the pollsters were unaware women are allowed to vote.
Perhaps when the pollsters asked people, the men refused to let their women speak to strangers.
Both attitudes are increasingly common in the UK and in Scotland too. Denial of this growing reality is all too common as well.
We’ll cut aff oor noses to spite those English bastards faces. That’s them telt. Bastards. Soar Giro!
The SNP is NOT the party of Independence any more…
Any member who cared about Indy is long gone, leaving the career troughers, the blue-haired biology deniers and the weak and feeble minded wee ginger fuds.
SNP are just another Yoon Party now.
Hardly surprising that the SNP voters are not interested in independence because the support the SNP for a wide variety of reasons other than that.
The question is though that once the SNP starts losing it’s ability to form governments, will these SNP voters and SNP politicians start defecting to the Greens?
Frankly my dear, not a shit will be given either way.
The SNP are charlatans in tartan suits selling snake oil labelled “Independence Embrocation – Guaranteed to cure Scotland of the Union and all its associated ills”.
The day after the election the SNP wagon moves on and you’ll not hear Independence mentioned again, at least until the polling booths are on the verge of opening again
Sixth on the list is crime. But what is crime and what is the perception of what crime actually is.
At its most simple crime is I suspect most likely to be widely perceived as murder, rape, assault, drug dealing and that sort of thing.
But of course crime is much much more than that. Save for widespread public perception of crime only being to the person violent or things like burglary of the person or their home everything else is to a huge extent disregarded.
But corruption and fraud is the huge crime that dwarfs everything else and impoverish and deprive people more than anything else. And its everywhere aided and abetted by rotten governance. And its why our political system does not work.
And of course the police do little to nothing to address such crime. White collar, big city, big corporate and two bit trough slurping politico pay.
Feeding time in a hapless barrel of fish might be the analogy but as the elite get richer, and the vast majority poorer, does not anyone wonder why this actually is. Or are we all just accepting of the fraud that pervades all around feeding of our carcasses. But as this survey options show, corruption is not an issue to be asked about.
And that’ll be why I believe that its the boat people that have brought all our ills.
Vast increase in the crime you write of, Willie.
Vast increase in the boat people, too,
Vast increase in low level disorder, mobs roaming the streets chanting in Arabic, hassling of women in public places, knife injuries and deaths, carrying of edged weapons, drug dealing, petty theft and reset, etc.
Correlation is not causation.
People protesting about the dumping of several hundred functionally illiterate, unskilled, medievalist-mindset young men in the middle of their community, knowing that the very first thing each and every one of these young men did to reach this shores was to deliberately break our law, have, of course, been conned by Farage and his ilk.
Just keep repeating, correlation is not causation and you’ll be grand.
I am reminded of that Green party wifie Rachel Millward, she being the one who declared that she wanted Wales to be a “nation of sanctuary” only to become rather shirty when plans were announced to dump a ton of “asylum seekers” within the vicinity of her fancy £1.5 million hoosie. Quelle surprise, eh? 🙄
It looks like the SNP support for Independence is Not Proven and will soon disappear like the legal safeguard they have called a legal idiosyncrisy.
While early release of criminals will continue.
Upon reading a comment in this thread that mentioned PayPal Kavanagh’s site, I made the mistake of having a lurk on it.
His latest ‘article’, tries to conflate this case with the current immigration political crisis and even has the audacity to call ordinary men heterosexual cisgender.
This sums up the SNP, much like Labour and the Greens, a hotbed of competing idealogies who are not interested in the core aims of their party.
As I said previously, once the SNP electorally loses the right to govern in Holyrood, expect the rats to desert the sinking ship including PayPaul Kavanagh.
Looks like you’ll have another 5 years of saying it then.
Just think how good your cut-and-paste technique will be by 2031.
Who’s the loser?
Me with the cut and paste jobs at every election or you and your multiple accounts stalking everybody on this site?
Everybody has someone living rent free in their heads at one time in their lives, you have everyone in this site living rent free in your head 24/7
RALMFAO
Multiple accounts, Bilbo? How you must wish that was true.
My “stalking” of you was me pointing out the quite uncontroversial fact that the SNP currently look most likely to be comfortably in charge of Scotland’s destiny for another 5 years, taking their tenure through to 2031.
Suck it up. The truth may set you free.
And for the sweet love of the divine baby Jesus, could some 12 YO explain, using block capitals, cartoon voices and sock puppets, just WTAF “24/7” means to those congenital eejits who keep using the term whilst being abysmally ignorant of what it stands for.
Say what you like about the Covid Spreaders, but they know how to stamp out tranny behaviour.
Check out the BBC Online report on the undercover investigation into Covid Central’s schools for “rebellious” teens.
Nothing like a bit of corrective rape to sort out these deluded youngsters!
thing is , If you realise indi isn’t going to be happening any time soon, then you will prioritise things that might possibly be addressed.