The Glorious Failures
Twitter yesterday was full of SNP MPs crowing about having been elected exactly one year ago, something achieved on the back of a pledge to “STOP BREXIT” and put Scotland’s future in its own hands. But curiously, none of the pics any of them posted with their tweets depicted the party’s main campaign slogan.
Which, y’know, is pretty understandable.
Because Brexit hasn’t been stopped, and Scotland’s future is still firmly in the hands of Boris Johnson, who seems hell-bent on making it one of a no-deal catastrophe. And the bitter truth is that the SNP are as responsible for that as anyone else.
Before last year’s election, the UK parliament had a clear majority of MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit. They voted time and time again on a variety of plans that would have prevented it from happening. But they did so in a manner so incompetent, so tribal and so brainless that they didn’t manage to actually get their ducks in a row and deploy that majority, leaving us where we are now.
(That place being very well explained by Fintan O’Toole here.)
The SNP and the Lib Dems both had it in their power to ensure that the UK stayed in the Customs Union – a bad option but one which would at least have prevented the worst of the chaos that’s about to descend on the UK’s ports and economy. But they chose not to, whipping their MPs to abstain instead.
Labour had it in their power to pass a Joanna Cherry amendment which would have ensured that in the event of no better deal being agreed, the UK parliament would have been obliged to revoke Article 50. But they chose not to, whipping their MPs to abstain instead.
The three parties bickered and squabbled and postured their way out of agreeing on anything that would have either stopped or significantly softened Brexit, but they still had it in their power to prevent Boris Johnson getting his no-deal, because he had no majority and was basically cornered in a Parliament that wouldn’t do what he wanted and foiled his attempt to prorogate it out of the way.
So then they contrived to hand him his no-deal on a plate, by pushing for a disastrous election which has left them all powerless to do anything against Johnson’s 80-seat majority and given him total control of the Commons for the next four years, rather than 18 months as a lame-duck PM whose worst plans could all be foiled.
The SNP, having loudly demanded the election for weeks on end, actually bottled out of voting for it in the end, feebly abstaining again over a manufactured grievance of three days’ difference in the election date. The only thing they have any right to be celebrating is their own continued employment on vast salaries and pension contributions for another half-decade while Scotland and the rest of the UK burn.
The events of the last few years have reinforced the view of many people that all politicians are basically a mafioso parasite class, existing only to suck personal benefit out of the country and impose their personal ideologies with no interest in how much harm they do to the populace.
(An opinion supported by the fact that even EU countries have managed to survive for literally years without a government, without falling into anarchy.)
We find that position one that’s increasingly hard to refute.
An SNP manifesto web page from a year ago had an odd list of priorities:
Three of those four pledges have been categorically and indisputably failed. Boris Johnson has not been locked out of No.10 (quite the reverse), Brexit has not been escaped and Scotland’s future is no more in “Scoland’s” hands than it was before.
So perhaps the SNP’s seeming total obsession with transgender issues (because it’s done nothing whatsoever for the L, G, B or I of “LGBTI” since 2016) is just a sign of them trying to rescue something from the wreckage of their hollow promises.
But either way, if we were them we wouldn’t be going out of our way to remind people of what a complete waste of time their presence in the UK parliament has been for the last 12 months, and will be for the next 48 as well.
It’s time to get out of this mess before it’s too late, and if the current leadership doesn’t have a plan for that – which it plainly doesn’t – we urgently need to get one that does.
Stu, if you were able to put a new leader of your choice in, who would it be?
And who do you think is most likely to be the next permanent leader?
P.s. I couldn’t help but notice Rhiannon Spear has deleted her twitter over the weekend. Another wee win!
It’s like a tragic Macbeth except they chopped the Birnam forest down and still didn’t see the enemy approaching. Sheer incompetence and still sucking salaries like a mosquito!
Here I thought at first glance that was the big yellow Brexit bus bringing the weekly £350 million for the NHS.
And then reality struck and I realised it was Nicola stopping Brexit.
No, the people responsible for the brexit mess are those who voted Leave.
Small point, Caroline Lucas (Green) always voted in a constructive way.
In that SNP manifesto I see not word about Independence.
Plenty about Devolution.
I already despise Sturgeon but am fast getting to despise the SNP.
People are rightly furious with the SNP. Especially Nicola Sturgeon and Ian “Scotland wont be dragged out of…” Blackford.
The problem is that we don’t have any real way to express that anger : But when we do……
P.S. Murrell should be sacked.
To be totally honest, I can no longer see Scotland escaping this debacle in any way. Brexit will slowly tighten around the throat of the poorest 50% in Scotland, and pressure the “middle classes” who have not shown themselves much interested in tackling the worst Tory government in the last 100 years – even outdoing Thatcher.
I suppose a change in Leadership would help – depending on who that was. the only one I think capable of leading us out of this disaster is Joanna Cherry, but is she in a strong enough position in the party (I think not, at least that’s my impression).
The May Holyrood election will be too late in my view, if nothing happens in the next 2/3 months to orchestrate some form of Referendum or alternative Scottish Independence position, I can envisage Holyrood being neutered by Westminster, or bypassed completely.
Gove wants to “review” the constitutional arrangements and that, coupled with the Internal Market Bill, and the expanded “UK Govt. in Scotland” Office spells the end of serious devolution in Scotland (and probably also Wales).
If by February/March this is happening, what exactly will the SNP do? And perhaps more importantly, what will the rest of the Yes movement do then?
We had so many expectations I remember. We thought they were going to fight for our corner. To quote Winston Churchill
” We thought we were casting a Tiger on the shores and instead all we have is a beached whale”.
He had a way with words.
It is beyond time our representatives put their own neck on the line in this fight. They have played it by the book and been found wanting, because this was never going to settled by the rules.
It is a failure of leadership, creativity and political nous at all levels.
Crushing in its failure ,and heartbreaking in its lack of intendity and importance.
Alex Lomax and his comment epitomises what we are up against.
The movement is divided until folk like Alex begin to see the dawn of truth.
Basically they’ve asked for mandates to go and moan in Westminster.
We can all moan.
If you’d no intention of making manifesto pledges a reality, you shouldn’t include them.
No doubt they’d argue that they were/are elected to advocate a position but I don’t think that’s how electors see it, they want you to “make it so” and will think you didn’t deliver. Some of them at least will think that you should seek alternative arrangements, ie independence in a hurry, if Scotland can’t get what it wants just by moaning.
In other words, while I can’t speak for everyone, I don’t vote for folk to moan, I vote for them to *do* and deliver.
I’ll say again, if you don’t think you can actually do something, eg “stop Brexit”, don’t say you can. But if you do, don’t blame voters who believe you and expect you to do it.
Hard to imagine the No Deal Brexit that it looks like we’re heading for won’t lead to increased support for independence.
Nah, Lomax, politicians of all parties have shaped how this will be delivered.
An EFTA type of arrangement could have been done.
Stop trying to let your beloved SNP off.
“No, the people responsible for the brexit mess are those who voted Leave.”
No, they’re not. They made a bad choice, but it was only a choice. The people responsible for implementing that choice in a way that wasn’t a complete fucking bin fire – an entirely achievable goal – are the politicians.
@ ‘willie says:
13 December, 2020 at 12:16 pm
Here I thought at first glance that was the big yellow Brexit bus bringing the weekly £350 million for the NHS.
And then reality struck and I realised it was Nicola stopping Brexit.’
Aye Willie, and in politics visual appearances are SO important. Given how intelligent, experiened St Nicla is, I struggle to see how anyone could attribute this to an innocent mistake, as apposed to a very deliberate faux pass.
Spiking the guns and pulling the punches – not keeping the powder dry.
“Hard to imagine the No Deal Brexit that it looks like we’re heading for won’t lead to increased support for independence.”
So fucking what? Support counts for nothing if there’s no referendum to express it in.
“Stu, if you were able to put a new leader of your choice in, who would it be?
And who do you think is most likely to be the next permanent leader?”
Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? That’s what the fight is about. If you don’t know who the contenders are by now and what they stand for, I can’t help you.
And in not having stopped Brexit maybe Tsar Nicola will tell us now what she is intending to do to alleviate the price increases and indeed shortages that are now starting to appear in our supermarkets.
My local Morrison’s is starting to regularly have bare shelves of certain products like imported beer brand, wine and the old favourite toilet rolls.
In relation to food meat has gone up in price as have certain vegetables and olive oil – and this is before Brexit. And so with trade journals widely predicting huge price increases to come next year what is Nicola Sturgeon planning to do to help people on modest incomes – especially pensioners and those on benefits.
Now might not have been the time for Sturgeon and her man who are on big bucks but it is for the most of everybody else.
@Alec Lomax says:
13 December, 2020 at 12:17 pm
“No, the people responsible for the brexit mess are those who voted Leave.”
I suppose you could argue that everyone who voted for the SNP is also responsible, since Sturgeon promised to stop Brexit.
Never, ever blame the voters. Politicians most certainly do not, as it is a guaranteed way to lose votes.
The party of government in Scotland is so intimidated by England’s power it still raises its hand respectfully to be chosen to speak.
@Bob Mack
Nail on head.
Sturgeon won’t call a Referendum, not because she doesn’t want Independence, but because she wants to retain her current position more. If she holds a Referendum and loses, she has to go and she knows it. By the time she is ready to risk her position (ie when she is ready to call it a day anyway), the opportunity will be lost and her heart won’t be in it anyway.
But nobody will challenge her for the leadership because those involved in ‘plots’ to bring down the old leader are usually also cast aside if they can’t effect a perfect coup.
So everybody is waiting for unspecified, untimetabled events to conspire so that they are PERSONALLY in the best position to benefit. This is the complete opposite of what leadership is about.
Maybe WE should stop talking about WHO is next, which will inevitably lead to more wasted years of leadership poisoned by the cult of personality and start discussing WHAT we would like to see a new leader do and WHAT should be in their manifesto for any leadership election.
It matters not a jot WHO is the next leader if they will not DO what needs done and in order to ensure that, they must be elected on a manifesto they can be held accountable to.
Sturgeon is the greatest asset the brits have against indy the last four years have proven that. She is the block to Scotland’s freedom.
@ Alex Lomax
The EU Ref was supposedly advisory, and the result had no significant majority instructing politicians to implement a hard leave or no deal.
If the English Government of the UK locks Scotland into the Union, I will blame the SNP.
The problem we have regarding indy is that people were sucked into the euphoria of a new leader and a false policy of showing that Scotland could be governed well. “Governed well UNDER THE UNION” can anyone else see the problem?
If I was to lay out a plan to prevent Scotland being independent for as long as possible, I could quite simply take Sturgeons actions( and inactions) since she became the leader of the SNP.
They have even put in checks and balances by way of the transgender issues, the Hate crime Bill, no plan B and the insistence on both votes for SNP which could stop a runaway pro-independence vote in next Mays elections forcing them to actually do something about independence.
This coming May NS has asked to be judged on her record. Well it will be interesting to see how she defends her Brexit stance and her focus on everything else but Independence. If she is still in charge by then…
Slightly O/T
Surprise Surprise The talks are to be extended into next week.
What an absolute dog’s dinner.
Can kicking in the extreme.
Plus side I suppose is Ian Blackford doesn’t have stage a walk-out tomorrow to prove he was being serious about us not being dragged out!!!!!!
Holds breath.
And for those with pets it seems that from 1st January anyone travelling from Scotland to Northern Ireland with a pet such as a dog will only be able to do so if they have a pet vaccine certificate issued by a vet up to ten days before.
If dugs could vote I’m sure they wouldn’t have done so for Nicola. Sadly the humans did.
And meanwhile whilst Tsar Nicola struts the stage wittering on about Covid restriction tiers, the Clyde Naval Submarine Base at Faslane and weapons store at Coulport is being reported anecdotally as having a huge Covid out break where the MoD Police, the Guard Service, and the Royal Marine protection units are reported as having infection rates approaching 40%.
The MoD committee in Westminster however say they have no knowledge of Covid in the base. Well they would say that wouldn’t they.
As for the local hotspot of infections round the Coulport peninsula, Garelochead and Helensburgh, well that’s just a coincidence – and hard luck the rest of Argyll and Bute for having to be put up a tier.
Makes a mockery of all of Tsar Nicola’s posturing on Covid when you can have RN Typhoid Mary on your doorstep.
https://fb.watch/2imj_ck-AS/
What really irks me, is the SNP Scotgov are carrying on with business as usual. Mumbling their way through bills and draft legislation, just like everything is normal, everything is just fine and dandy. But things are NOT normal.
No other country in the world would tolerate what is about to be forcibly done to Scotland for one freaking second. Yet the SNP’s intransigence carries on. Their meek, pathetic acceptance, that ‘they can’t do anything’. They do not even try.
In just a few weeks, Scotland will be forcibly and undemocratically forced out of the EU by England, wholly against its wishes. The people of Scotland will lose their rights to live and work in 27 countries of Europe – again, at the hands of England, and wholly against our wishes.
This is an absolute outrage that the SNP seem to be quite ok with.
That the vast bulk of these SNP MP’s sit on their hands whining, instead of actually saying “This simply cannot stand. It is our duty, the duty of the First Minister and the Scottish government to protect Scots, Scottish business interests and Scotland’s constitutuional settlement.”
To date, the Scottish government has done none of these things. Mandate after mandate, after mandate, yet still they dither.
I guess, if Nicola Sturgeon really believes in Scottish independence, she no doubt looks at herself in the mirror each day, and says “I’m doing the right thing, I simply cannot do anything to help Scotland or achieve independence, because London won’t let me – yes, that’s right, it’s out of my controll, I’ll just do nothing”.
Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are bound not by London, or by Boris the English clown, no, in reality they are bound by chains of their very own making. It was the FM who insisted a referendum needed approval by Boris (it doesn’t), it was the FM who said that the long standing understanding that a majority of indy MP’s meant an end to the union, no longer applied. NONE of these things were introduced by London or Boris. Over and over again, Nicola Sturgeon has dreamt up new ‘excuses’ why she couldn’t possibly go for independence, or even call an independence referendum.
The SNP, the do-nothing party, bound up by chains of its own making. Utterly, utterly useless. And my anger at each and every one of them increases exponentially as each day ticks down to Scotland being forcibly dragged out of the EU.
Starting to think, that like Boris the clown, they too should all be put in jail.
Another interesting article from the Irish Times.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/chris-johns-brexit-identity-politics-and-english-nationalism-will-destroy-the-united-kingdom-1.4435543
Let’s see what the recent change of NEC personnel brings.
https://twitter.com/SovereignWill/status/1338039561096749056
RevStu at 1237pm
EXACTLY. We can have as many polls as we like, we could even have 100 percent in favour of independence, and Nicola would still be insisting that we need London’s permission. It is pathetic. Utterly, utterly pathetic.
No country ever got independence by asking permission.
There are rumours that Ian Blackford is going to stand up in the Westminster Parliament and promise:-
“Scotland WILL NOT be dragged into the UK Internal Market against her will”
Sitting on your ring and doing SFA to protect the people you were elected to represent from the imminent catastrophe is absolutely nothing to crow about.
I am sick fed up to the back teeth of their inaction and stubborn refusal to do something – ANYTHING FFS. NS either is about to pull off THE most impressive conjuring trick that totally wrong foots WM or she’s a fkin charlatan. There’s no middle ground.
The Dissident
Excellent comment. The crop of wastrels north and south of the border are perfect examples of the paralysis that grips current politics. There’s no real way out of this, Brexit or a push for independence, without a complete change at the top. It will have to be bodies rather than a change in attitude because there’s no one with the vision or talent to make it happen. That, unfortunately, includes the likes of Joanna Cherry. She’s a product of recent times. Success or even just getting out of this log-jam is going to need something different altogether.
I completely agree. Focus on what we want and find out the best way to get it. All this talk of a messiah to save us from peril is really just a waste of time. If there was one lurking around, we’d know by now.
Every time I see an SNP MP at Westminster, on their feet, struggling to be heard over the braying donkeys and coming across like a last minute addition to a 3rd year high school debating team, I ask myself WTF exactly are they doing there?
They keep the benches warm and their bank balances topped up. Apart from that…
Could there ever exist a partnership where those on either side appear so diametrically opposed on such important issues.
It is unthinkable. Yet here we are.We demand equality but from a partner who still sets all the rules by which we can try to achidve it. That is bondage.
Forget democracy. That is just a convenient word for the chains used by the bigger entity to supress the lesser in this instance.
We need fighters who will not operate by thkse rules, and that most assuredly is not St Nicla.
.
Sturgeon is a Fraudster, a Failure and a Fanny.
She will ask for ANOTHER Mandate and get it.
She will then stand up in the Scottish Parliament and blame everything on Johnson.
With the only movement being the Murrell’s bank account going up faster than the National Debt.
Cherry has to open her mouth soon, along with others.
Our future hangs on an Internal coup.
Stu, you are spot on with this article. I liked the ” a mafioso parasite class ” bit in particular.
Heard Mike Russell on the radio this morning, “ensuring blah blah blah goods blah blah blah”, I could hear most of what he was saying because there was to much interference from my head screaming ‘well you should have got independence for us well before now ye fucker. You haven’t bothered mentioning your total and utter failure on that front in your tedious repetitive hand-wringing pish fest’. I missed out most of the swear words in that, I can be somewhat unpleasantly grumpy in the morning.
“what a complete waste of time their presence in the UK parliament has been for the last 12 months”
Rev, that’s three successive Scotland majorities of MP’s the SNP has squandered. Thatcher and Major both accepted that one SNP Scotland majority was enough to negotiate our UK withdrawal, whilst more hardliners like Brittan and Tebbit wanted two successive majorities. We’ve returned three and still no withdrawal. All we see is a subordinate peoples’ respect for the ever higher hurdles our deceitful colonial oppressor puts in our way, such as dubious referendums and the S.30 nonsense, and whatever next comes up the west coast main line.
Meantime the SNP has morphed into an international mouthpiece for certain minority interest groups and causes, which is reflected in ‘selective’ Ministerial spending and policies in these areas and in promoting oppressive laws which most folks don’t want or need, such as GRA and the Hate Crime Bill.
The SNP elite have forgotten or are now simply uncaring that the fundamental reason for independence is because the Scots themselves are an oppressed and hence an unequal minority people and culture within the UK. The SNP have now deserted this cause.
If the Scots do not vote for Indy once brexit is hitting they deserve extinctions
Letting brexit run will force a large yes vote, if it happens!
Soon we will know if nicola has been compromised.
Would she accept a peerage??
The day Gradualism was endorsed by the SNP membership as our new path to Independence and “Independence in Europe” officially became our mantra.
Dr Robert McIntyre, from the floor gave what may have been his last speech to National Council. He concurred that pointing out the absurdity and indeed the folly of having Westminster define our relationship with the EU and that highlighting the reality of our common membership of the EU provided us with a seamless and easily argued route to independence.
But he warned that the future is fickle and the interests of the EU may not always coincide with the best interests of the people of Scotland, that wile Independence in Europe may prove to be a useful and potentially fruitful slogan, it should never be allowed to supplant putting Scotland First as the aim of The Scottish National Party.
He got a standing ovation from the delegates, as Nicola Sturgeon who was chairing the session, sat stoney-faced. I thought she was just a bit miffed that someone she saw as an auld fossil was getting praise for firing a warning shot across the leaderships bow.
With the benefit of having observed the now Sturgeon controlled SNP since the Brexit vote … I suspect she may have seen it as more of a dagger to the heart.
“But he warned that the future is fickle and the interests of the EU may not always coincide with the best interests of the people of Scotland, that wile Independence in Europe may prove to be a useful and potentially fruitful slogan, it should never be allowed to supplant putting Scotland First as the aim of The Scottish National Party.“
Exactly where I sit on the EU issue. The two should never be lumped together.
For the pain and misery brexit has (think about all the times folk who couldn’t afford to have stockpiled wee bits for each and every brexit date so far, and will have to do so again, after the covid debacle, not to mention all the shafted eu citizens) I would consign every main political party to the wheelie bin of history. P.S.I,see your top of Mhairi Hunter ‘s pops Stu. How dare you groom me into thinking for myself.
Scots today no longer have the excuse that their independence was “bought and sold for English gold” by the aristos and politicians of a pre-democratic age.
This is on us. All of us.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter that you or I personally voted the “right” way, or that we share the same ultimate goal. As a people, we are so tholed after three centuries of being participants – whether willing or thrawn – of the British nationalist project, that we can’t even conspire to turn a pro-independence popular majority into a popular vote.
Despite multiple mandates in our parliament, irrespective of dewy eyed references to the Declaration of Arbroath, the Claims of Rights, and the much vaunted primacy of Scots popular sovereignty over Westminster parliamentary supremacy, we are content for our representatives to meekly ask permission to exercise our own self determination.
What other people in history has consented to the surrender of its millennium-long sovereignty in return for a trade deal, limited protection for its indigenous religious and legal system and access to the spoils of their imperial masters?
We erect statues on columns to figures like Viceroy Dundas, who epitomises all that is wrong with both our ancestral cringe and our current lack of political courage. In what other country would they cavil at joyfully dynamiting such an edifice to the suppression of Scottish sovereignty and promotion of the imperial subjection of his own and other peoples?
Can we imagine statues in Poland to those who collaborated in the partition of their country in the 18th century? Would any but the extreme right wing fringe in France advocate having a statue to Petain or Laval gazing down on central Paris? Would Americans think the appropriate response to a statue of Benedict Arnold on the Mall in Washington DC was to erect a small plaque next to it pointing out that he may have fought for the other side, but hell…he started off on the right side?
If we don’t want to go down in history as a nation of glorious failures, seeing our descendants in 2307 celebrating the sexcentenary of the Union, we need to stop asking and start telling Westminster what is going to happen. The SNP can either help do that, or get out of the way for those who will.
If Nicola Sturgeon gets a mandate in May
Bye bye women’s rights
Hello authoritarian suppression of free speech
And the slightest chance of independence this decade
We have totally wasted 6 years
No legal clarity
No cash
No independence policy development either by the civil service or the party
The sooner Sturgeon goes the quicker we get independence
Unfortunately the next time she can possibly be challenged is next Autumn let’s hope some one steps up to the plate and also someone challenges that awful Keith Brown there really should have been a deputy leader challenge this year.
Meanwhile our only hope is she fails to win a majority and an Indy list party gets enough votes to topple her or at least stop her madder policies
Dan posted a link to a tweet from Chris Hanlon (SNP, Policy on the NEC) to his article in the National, last few paragraphs,
“PUTTING myself in the shoes of a soft No voter who might be wavering I would like to know that independence was a serious proposition, that workhad been done on how to manage the transition as smoothly as possible.
I might like to know that there was an interim constitution already written, that work was already ongoing on the vast body of enabling legislation that would be needed after a Yes vote.
Having lived through four years of Brexit chaos I certainly would like to know that I wasn’t voting for a repeat of 2016 when a bunch of fly-by-night cowboys made a load of promises they knew were lies and then disappeared like the morning dew the instant it came time to live up to their pretty words.
I want people that yearned to vote Yes last time but were scared it would all go horribly wrong to feel safe this time around when they choose Scotland.
My goal is to make sure that this time Yes means confidence in a better, more secure, future for all.”
Cutting through the political fluff-talk, it seems a reasonably positive direction, but still no seeming urgency to all the grand plans. He starts off by talking about all policy needs to be decided in conference – well, that’s another year down the drain then. At least it has ‘plan’ written all over it, how hard was that?
Having run leadership courses, the one common denominator I found was often that leaders had no awareness of where they stood in relation to their workforce.
Often there was a feeling of “having arrived” instead of seeing you still had far to go.
It was also noticeable that those with inconcise aims invariably returned inconcise results.
That is exactly how St Nicla appears to me right now.
Shug
A brand new game next year and nobody knows the rules
If Brexit turns out to be less of a disaster than the Remainiacs seem to be praying it will be.
The Scottish National Party will have wasted 25 years of bigging up an organisation that told us we would be out on our arse, if we abandoned the UK.
If we do not gain independence next year … Our chances of ever convincing the fearties, who have been the biggest contributors to the destruction of Scotland in living memory, will be just about nil.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Indy Polls start regularly hitting over 60% from around spring time.
And Sturgeon will take every bit of credit for that.
And you already know the rest of the script.
All the disciples are again out in force parroting their leader. Trying to be more anti-SNP than the next poster.
Yes the SNP leadership have not, and are not, doing what I want either, but what is the alternative? Getting rid of Nicola, the most popular politician ever known in Scotland, a few months before the Holyrood elections – Don’t think so. Giving up the chance of getting an overall majority – Don’t think so.
You all really know you will have to vote SNP 1st choice if you really want Independence. There is no way out of that. 2nd vote for another indie party would be ok depending on what that party is like.
The vast majority of SNP voters trust Nicola and it will be up to the rest of us to hold the SNP to account. And, listen loyal diciples, at the moment there will be no indie ref or plan B to Z if plan A (getting a majority at Holyrood) does not come to pass,and only the SNP can get that.
@Roddy,
Sadly you are part of the problem, not the solution
St Nicla???
It’s surely St Knickerless.
And from what goes on in those Bute House free for all’s,,, she’s no Angel.
A right wee raver.
Yes indeed Stuart, the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon have been abject failures in every way, not least in regards to their raison d’être. Trying to stop Brexit when it was what England & Wales had voted for; a manifesto promise of a referendum in the event of a “material change in circumstances” which they seem to have forgotten about; and not knowing that the result of the 2019 GE would be anything other than an overwhelming majority for Boris Johnson. There are many, many more examples which prove beyond doubt that the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon have no political nous whatsoever. Not the kind of people you want to be reliant upon when you are fighting for your life. They are, as Stuart alludes to regarding the political class, neo-liberal puppets dangled by the hidden hand of finance.
There are two things I can’t help thinking about. The first is that we are living in apocalyptic times. I remember running an analysis a couple of years ago taking into account various ecological and environmental factors and my estimate is that we are unlikely to survive beyond 2091 unless we change tack now. Unfortunately, Boris Johnson and Brexit are taking us in exactly the opposite direction from the direction required to save ourselves and our future. Not only that, but Brexit is being carried out simply to keep the wealth stashed in off-shore accounts safe with no thought whatsoever to the well-being of the general population or the environment.
Sometimes I think that because we are staring into the void and facing our own demise, a collective madness has fallen over the Earth. Since we cannot exist without our environment – we need air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat etc. – then because our environment is so degraded so must our state of mind be.
I often go out for long walks and walking around Glasgow is really like walking through a post-apocalyptic landscape. Litter, trash and dirt swirling about the streets, overflowing and vandalised litter bins, broken pavements, shuttered shops and buildings covered with graffiti. It breaks my heart to walk along by the canal and see all the rubbish dumped, set on fire and abandoned. It hasn’t been cleaned for months and yet there is so much wildlife dependent on the canal. And it can all be cleaned so easily with a little effort. A rake, brush and electric cart and the canal bank could be cleaned from Spiers Wharf to Balloch in a day or so. The same could be done in the canal itself by boat, collecting all the garbage floating on the surface. But there is no great monetary profit to be gained from this and so nothing is done. The entire system is broken and unless we do something to change it then, as a species, we are doomed.
I always hoped that an independent Scotland would be the beacon that changed the world, particularly because if we can escape the Union, then we can break the neo-liberal stranglehold the UK has over Scotland, and set a global example in self-sufficiency.
I have to be honest, however, and think that it may be too late now for Scotland and too late for the world. But where there’s life there’s hope, and we have no option but to keep fighting. Is there anyone within the SNP who can save us in the nick of time with the few days we have left remaining? If so, please stand up. Otherwise it will be a slow and painful journey to extinction, for our nation and our planet.
Talking of glorious failures…
The positive land reform initiatives are being swiftly* implemented.
* Well that’s “swiftly” if one uses the same geological timescale that actually created the land in the first place!
https://twitter.com/LesleyRiddoch/status/1338085700453928961
@Roddy Mackenzie
What is the point of an overall majority?
It will be used to destroy women’s rights and bring in draconian anti free speech legislation
What it won’t do is bring us any closer to independence
The good of the SNP is not to the good of the independence movement. It is the opposite the snp is hampering the independence movement and until we get new leadership that problem will remain
May I say tk all those who support Nicola that whilst focusing on your leader whether she deserves it or not is fair enough, it is a mistake.
Your focus should not be solely on what your leader is doing but rather whether they are doing anything to overcome the opposition strategy. That is much more important.
At this momentv in time Boris has Nicola wrapped up like his favoured oven ready expression. That is just the truth.
@Contrary
There is a spring conference in March/April which can make policy.
The problem is the manifesto is written by someone Nicola appoints. There is no requirement for the manifesto to reflect party policy. So for example conference votes for plan b that doesn’t mean plan b would be in the manifesto
We are sort of screwed unless something or someone turns up
Step 1: plebiscitary election (currently in the interests of the SNP to get a lot of votes they are losing on a number of fronts.
Step 2: Push SNP1 ISP2*
Step 3: Inform Westminster of intention to hold referendum as soon as practical. Ask once for s30 agreement.
Step 4: Carry on with referendum whatever the answer.
*or other genuinely pro-indy party**
**So not Greens.
Here’s the full article from Chris Hanlon in the National ,
https://archive.vn/bRq35
@roddy mackenzie
You all really know you will have to vote SNP 1st choice if you really want Independence. There is no way out of that. 2nd vote for another indie party would be ok depending on what that party is like.
The vast majority of SNP voters trust Nicola and it will be up to the rest of us to hold the SNP to account.
And therein lies the problem. We’re a captive electorate. We hand our votes over and nothing happens, but maybe there’ll be jam tomorrow if we’re good.
And just how do you suggest we hold them to account when the Blessed Nicola has just got herself another 5 years of power and is completely focused on her nonsensical GRA garbage?
Jo (I’m gonna be PM) Swinson and TrickyNicki really botched the whole thing. They had Boris in a stranglehold at Westmonster and let him escape from it. We all know who is gonna be in a stranglehold now, but I’m sure it won’t affect Jo or Nicki’s nice pension no matter the economic carnage that ensues.
I have to agree, Scotland is in this precarious position not because of what Westminster is doing, but because of what the Scottish government isn’t doing, which is nothing on the indy front.
When the Scottish government knew for sure that Brexit was going to go ahead, instead of trying to make political gain from it, which helped them but not Scots as a whole, they should’ve withdrew our MP’s from Westminster, and made preparations for an indyref in Scotland, bypassing Westminster altogether by putting the question directly to the sovereign people of Scotland.
Sturgeon didn’t attempt in any way to do that, instead of putting the question to the people on independence, she went completely in the other direction, and allowed Johnson to call the shots by insisting on the PM approving an S30, infact she went further than that by intentionally obstructing Martin Keating’s proposals and crowd funding to find out if we actually need an S30, which we already know we don’t because the Scottish people are sovereign and not Westminster.
Also instead of preparing to counter Brexit by holding or planning for an indyref, Sturgeon allowed the prty hierarchy to focus on fitting up former FM Alex Salmond and push the very unpopular GRA, Self-Id, and Hate Crime bills.
I could go on all about how bad Westminster is to Scotland, but the real point is that Sturgeon has allowed our ill treatment to continue on so many levels for so long, that the focus must remain on her and her lack of interest in securing an independence referendum.
What has Boris done to neutralise Scottish independence?
1. Brexit Bill
2. Expanded Civil Service in Edinburgh
3. Internal Market Bill
(Exectutive decisions not liable to Judicial Review)
4. Proposed Bill to devolve spending direct to Councils.
5. Gove talks about a Bill next year to amend Constitution.
What has Nicola and the SNP done to offset these measures?
Apparently its a secret apart from the verbal “We shall not be” mantra.
There can therefore ONLY be one winner regardless if they win every seat in Holyrood
Bob Mack @ 2:05
“At this moment in time Boris has Nicola wrapped up like his favoured oven ready expression. That is just the truth.”
The more worrying aspect is that she seems content for that to be the case. Now why would that be so?
Paper tigers, the lot of them.
I just posted a message on Twitter about how we might need an FOI request to find the volume of Murray Foote’s media output because he certainly doesn’t seem ‘Busy’
I mention in another post that it is my suspicion that Nicola hired him because she didn’t want to push for independence, and so needed someone who wouldn’t rock the boat, in that respect.
Maybe an article looking at our esteemed communications expert would go a long way to showing just how keen the team who the Murrells put together, have been to get independence to the forefront of our political discourse, Rev?
@ Dan at 1:01 pm
If you look at what he says, He’ll be getting to work. and laying the ground work.
He manages the use of work twice in cliche style, in a way to self-promote himself. The wording is exactly way Smith’s lot use it
I don’t have any knowledge of the person.
But I have no faith in the outcome, I don’t say little faith that would imply I had some
If the twitter person , had said “I will be trying to do” what ever that would be at least honest
Same shit different day
@ Patrick Roden at 2:35 pm
I also wondered about Foote, Why would ANY pro independence person employ him, ,He certainly is not an asset, especially after the Vow
I’d wager he wouldn’t be cheap
@MaggieC at 2:15 pm
I stick with my opinion of gentleman
Blaming the SNP for the current binfire (full of gas bottles) because they didn’t have a crystal ball about BoJo’n’Co being in charge sometime in the future …
Nope – they stayed solidly behind the best ‘option’ of single market access. You know, like N.I. seem to have rolled. Something bitter seems to have missed this fact.
But hell – I’m sure voting Labour or Tory or LibLiar would have helped.
@Bobajock,
Why did most of us ordinary folk on this site predict May was going to be pushed out yet our politicians didn’t ?
Stonefree @ 2.47 pm ,
You wrote “ I’d wager he wouldn’t be cheap “
Re Murray Foote being employed by the Snp , That’s another reason why the Snp accounts need to be investigated and published so that the members can find out exactly how much is being paid to all the high earners within the party especially Peter Murrell’s salary .
Denise,
Thanks for the info – that’ll be the usual good/bad news we have come to expect then! I suspect, but can’t be certain, there might be political changes afoot – just a feeling no more and no idea what or when – we need to keep up the pressure, from any and all sides I think, to make it more likely. Political changes are really what we need, urgently.
I’m thinking the only thing I’d be happy with at this stage, having been pissed about for so many years, is a plebiscite for independence at the Holyrood election. If you don’t ask, you don’t get, after all. So I think I’ll start asking (well, once I’ve written the Xmas cards, obviously, priorities etc).
https://mobile.twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1336280351140929536
Fighting talk from Jo Cherry. They were telt.
I will be expecting Nicola and the scottish gov. to resign first of January as they have totally allowed Scotland to be exposed to this disaster and failed the scottish nation. Or they can survive if they immediately cancel the treaty of union to be confirmed by a referendum to be held as soon as possible.
There is an issue with WoS now, it takes so much time to read. First you get the article which you will not find on MSM and then you get the replies. In the past the long replies I would just skip over, now I read them, some have very interesting content making the time spent worth it. I now spend more time on WoS than any other news site, not that I support WoS but it has become the main source of information that shines a light on our failing political system in Scotland. Yes I do read other blogs, but WoS has something which drives me and many indy supporters to follow it, but I know relying on a single news site has issues.
@John,
I have one gauge to measure if a site is good or not.
Does the claims it make appear to be backed by the evidence or just wishful thinking ?
So the SNP are to blame for sticking to what they said they’d fight for in the election, to stop Brexit.
Got it.
And therofor it’s their fualt we’re in this position… Because they didn’t vote for Brexit…
Got it.
And didn’t vote for the election to occur but are somehow part of this collusion…
Got it.
Unhinged
Got it.
Nally Anders @ 3.12 pm ,
That video of Joanna Cherry shows exactly why the * old NEC * didn’t want to have Joanna going for a seat at Holyrood . She would be the ideal person to take over the role that Mike Russell has as Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs since 2020.
Trying to change the SNP is looking more and more like pissing in the wind every day. I know there has been some positive news with the members last week, but the party hierarchy have become part of the establishment and are institutionally unreformable. New movement needed. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record.
I also hope in an indy Scotland we don’t have such a god awfully inefficient and tribal party system. How do we avoid the sort of deadlocks we seen in the last Westminster parliament? Would a move to a Swiss style direct democracy work for an independent Scotland? I’m starting to think it wouldn’t be a bad idea. The Scottish people could bypass the corrupt political establishment and truly be the masters of our own destiny.
Bob Mack says:
13 December, 2020 at 3:25 pm
@John,
I have one gauge to measure if a site is good or not.
Does the claims it make appear to be backed by the evidence or just wishful thinking ?
Good point, I have noticed how some issues raised here are “laughed at”, add time and the you realised they are spot on.
@Fergus Denoon,
Ok champ. The floor is yours.
Tell us what the SNP HAVE DONE ? . In any way.This should be easy for you.
Does anyone know why SNP abstained en masse on the customs union vote? (Political anorak question I know!) Surely SNP wanted to stay sort of in EU? Or was the full monty membership only acceptable enough?
Fergus Denoon @ 3.26pm : The problem with your analysis is that no one voted for the SNP to fight brexit, promote genderwoowoo or institute fascist thought-crime legislation.
The SNP know that people vote for them to deliver independence. That they didn’t even discuss it at national executive level since 2014 is why a significant number of members are ragin.
We are getting stuff we didn’t vote for; by voting for the SNP. That is unacceptable. The SNP are fast becoming the political equivalent of the 1980’s red tories. And that is a huge problem.
@ stonefree at 2.40pm
I did say let’s see what comes from the new personnel.
You mention Smith, well the bar doesn’t appear to have been set particularly high if that is the comparison to beat.
https://twitter.com/DavidDhenry/status/1332318832577441793
@ Nally Anders at 3:12 pm
Ms. Cherry is clearly a “cut above the vast majority of SNP MPs and MSPs” Including the First Minister,
It was good to hear her speak without the “Braying Pigs”
If the ability to exercise democracy is restricted by the political class then it is up to the electorate to use other means. The only peaceful means I can think of is strike action. Organise a general strike, this will hurt those who have wealth to lose. The majority of us have so little to lose, most are only a few paychecks away from destitution. It will be the political and capitalist class that get hurt the most from strike action. Remember the early lockdown, the community rallied to organise food distribution to those isolating. A general strike need not bring a halt to our society functioning, but it will put a break on the ability to expand capital, which is what will motivate the gatekeepers to submit to our democratic will.
Stopping Brexit ? Just another dose of posturing politics. Had they really wanted to do that they should have gone for secession, but those SNP MP’s and MSP’s are on a good number riding along as token dissidents within the British colonial setup. Tokenism and posturing are the 2 core attributes of most nationalists holding representative posts in Scotland and Wales. Salaried rebels in place to deflect the energy of our movements.
@ David Rodgers at 3:44 pm
In part it’s to show “solidarity” ,I don’t see it that way,If they don’t like the Bill, the correct position would be to vote against it, in opposition to the bill. They should be forthright in condemning the bill .
Some say that abstaining is a vote against or it’s is a disapproval of the bill, I disagree…..If there were something that the members or a single member was unhappy about then they should get up and say so.
The Mass Thing bit of a waste of time
Consider this If you are a member of the SNP , and say you cannot vote for the MSP/MP…You get expelled from the party
All you have done is abstained from voting,
All parties do the abstaining, they order the action, but the Member were voted into the position , by the general public not the party
That is only my opinion, last point It’s an ego trip “look at me,I’m super…. I abstained”
-Stephane Stechaud-
Your general strike proposal will hurt the poorest, not the richest. The richest will be able to circumvent the practicalities of it, the poorest won’t. The rich may lose profits but will still have land and shares. The rest of us will be stuck with no income and no means of paying said rent.
Your comparison to lockdown is inadvertently apt as the better-off have been able to sit at home, working on Zoom and getting everything delivered, while the working class have had to drag themselves to work the whole time. A similar scenario would occur in your strike.
Despite our left-leaning politics most in Scotland will not be attracted to your 1917 class warrior rubbish
*Rent for said land
@Nally Anders says:
13 December, 2020 at 3:12 pm
https://mobile.twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/133628035114092953
“Fighting talk from Jo Cherry. They were telt.”
All respect to her, but how the hell she going to do it? At the moment the SNP seems to be split into four – gradualist, UDI, legal and the “progressive” mob.
Yesterday I deliberately set out to make you angry, I wanted you to remember the name of messenger that you shot down, so when you saw it again you would attempt to do it again, and just like I said yesterday I am willing to be at the end of the vitriol, for the sake of independence of our country.
Perhaps now you’re sure you’ve shot the messenger, you could pick up the message.
Firstly At no point, did I suggest taking up arms. And we do not need to.
Secondly I have not now or ever have been a member of the Snp, I am to poor financial to give money to anyone.
My main aim is to bring awareness to all those that want an independent Scotland, to put country and freedom before myself,
I have spent many days ,weeks, and years looking for a back door solution to our independence Problem, when our politicians fail us big time, when our Scottish sites get shut of one by one. And i do get angry that the main topic has lost its enthusiasm and momentum, Yes were all tired of struggling for independence, but is that a good enough reason for it to go down in history, we all got tired?
Shoot the messenger again if that makes you happy, and ignore the message,
However that woke cancellation of discussion will not gain you, your independence.
Read the message and ask if it’s possible?
Could we achieve independence where politicians have blocked us?
how fast can we do it?
how scared are we to do it?
how do we go about doing it?
Does it have legal standing?
Can we motivate enough people quickly?
How do we deal with the people whom are on our sites that wish to stymie us?
Would covid be a hindrance or not?
Do you want independence?
Do you have a claim of right in Scotland?
Does it tally up with the right to self determination?
Is it wrote down legally?
Would it be recognised world wide, if the right to self determination was attached to the claim of right?
Do we need anyone other than the people the Scotland, whom hold the claim of right, to say how
and when it is done.
If there is legal precedent, for acting upon our claim of right, where is it. And what date was it done by the people of Scotland?
As far as I am aware there are no guidelines on how to enact the claim of right by the people. Or how long the procedure should take, nor any guidelines on given notification to any government be it Scotland or England. Although I presume we would if we were to enact our right, And it makes one wonder why the Snp have not encouraged us, or discussed with us, the sovereign people of Scotland, that we can still use this method to gain our independence, perhaps it would take the power away from the devolved governments and place it in the hands of the Scottish people. No more happy privileges and sitting safe using covid as a barrier,
Beaker @4.17pm.
Beaker.
Link doesn’t work, message says sorry that page doesn’t exist.
@ Ros
Beaker’s posts quotes and earlier post by Nally.
For some reason the quote is missing a 6 at the end of the link.
Here’s the non mobile link.
https://twitter.com/joannaccherry/status/1336280351140929536
Dan @4.33pm.
Thanks for the link Dan.
Yesterday I deliberately set out to make you angry, I wanted you to remember the name of messenger that you shot down, so when you saw it again you would attempt to do it again, and just like I said yesterday I am willing to be at the end of the vitriol, for the sake of independence of our country.
Perhaps now you’re sure you’ve shot the messenger, you could pick up the message.
Firstly At no point, did I suggest taking up arms. And we do not need to.
Secondly I have not now or ever have been a member of the Snp, I am to poor financial to give money to anyone.
My main aim is to bring awareness to all those that want an independent Scotland, to put country and freedom before myself,
I have spent many days ,weeks, and years looking for a back door solution to our independence Problem, when our politicians fail us big time, when our Scottish sites get shut of one by one. And i do get angry that the main topic has lost its enthusiasm and momentum, Yes were all tired of struggling for independence, but is that a good enough reason for it to go down in history, we all got tired?
Shoot the messenger again if that makes you happy, and ignore the message,
However that woke cancellation of discussion will not gain you, your independence.
Read the message and ask if it’s possible?
Could we achieve independence where politicians have blocked us?
how fast can we do it?
how scared are we to do it?
how do we go about doing it?
Does it have legal standing?
Can we motivate enough people quickly?
How do we deal with the people whom are on our sites that wish to stymie us?
Would covid be a hindrance or not?
Do you want independence?
Do you have a claim of right in Scotland?
Does it tally up with the right to self determination?
Is it wrote down legally?
Would it be recognised world wide, if the right to self determination was attached to the claim of right?
Do we need anyone other than the people the Scotland, whom hold the claim of right, to say how
and when it is done.
If there is legal precedent, for acting upon our claim of right, where is it. And what date was it done by the people of Scotland?
As far as I am aware there are no guidelines on how to enact the claim of right by the people. Or how long the procedure should take, nor any guidelines on given notification to any government be it Scotland or England. Although I presume we would if we were to enact our right, And it makes one wonder why the Snp have not encouraged us, or discussed with us, the sovereign people of Scotland, that we can still use this method to gain our independence, perhaps it would take the power away from the devolved governments and place it in the hands of the Scottish people. No more happy privileges and sitting safe using covid as a barrier, and it take out wokery in Scotland, no more hate crime bill, no more men in women’s spaces, no more civil servants sent from England to run Scotland, no more mundells, no more jack the lads ruining Scotland, no more of anything that we do not agree to.
And a good kick up the behind for the injustices that are being burdened on the Scottish people,
What’s not to like about having thorough deep down discussion on this, and quickly for our sake and Scotland’s.
Forget and ignore those whom try block or belittle us, stymie our conversation, or divert us away into a different direction, these people are professionals in what they do and have a purpose for doing so.
Robert Knight 1:15pm
“Apart from that…”
‘Pensions’ is the answer you are looking for.
On an other matter regarding Murray Foote being employed by the SNP – I’d have thought any card-carrying SNP member would have cheerfully hanged that piece of shit from the nearest lamp post,not employ him.
Long before she became the leader of the SNP, I briefly met Ms Sturgeon (she paid my local SNP branch a visit to help us organise during a general election). What I remember of her back then is something that I cannot for the life of me reconcile with the Ms Sturgeon of today.
I suspect that, rather than all the exotic reasons being advanced for her lack of enthusiasm for Scottish independence, it will all come down to the usual, sordid reasons: money and power. No doubt in the months ahead I’ll find out, via Wings, as this blog seems to be the only reliable source of Scottish political investigative journalism there is these days.
It’s not unusual to see powerful Yoons referred to by Yessers as Vichy Scots.
Depressing to realise that it has actually been the SNP under the current leadership behaving like a Vichy puppet regime subjugated by Westminster.
Alec Lomax says:
13 December, 2020 at 12:17 pm
No, the people responsible for the brexit mess are those who voted Leave.
That’s like saying that the people responsible for car crashes are the people who drive cars
@Fergus Denoon
How are/were the SNP ever going to stop Brexit?And I say that as a former member of the party.Until Sturgeon and the rest of the Red Tory interlopers are gone I won’t be re fuckin joining either.
Got it!
The next leader will be either J Cherry or A Robertson by the current look of things.
@Livionian
I’m all for a lot of direct democracy. But only if there is also a constitution so certain rights are off the table.
For example folk should not be able to vote on whether a certain race has equal rights to them. They should have equal rights by constitution. This stops bad and immoral causes pushed by media manipulation becoming a thing.
This is why women couldn’t vote in Switzerland until the 60s as only men got to vote in the referendums to allow them to vote and it took them a long time to be persuaded.
Just checked it was actually 1971.wow
@ Saffron Robe at 2:04 pm
Aye, it does feel like we are living in a scene from a dystopian nightmare at times. Maybe it is actually more than a feeling and it is our reality.
There is the potential and developing technology to support doing so much better than we currently see as an acceptable normal.
Waste management is an utter joke. How on earth can “developed” countries be exporting the waste they produce to other developing countries where it is dumped in landfill or “processed” in archaic fashion.
If we want to keep our land clean and unpolluted for future generations then we need to lead by example and get on with addressing the issues.
It seems to be an accepted norm that subsidies are handed out to various industries to keep them functioning. Why has the waste industry not got its act together and continues to allow massive amounts of waste to go unprocessed. There is value in the waste we jettison which if harnessed would help subsidise the running of the processing system.
This is the sort of thing a proper Green Party should be all over, but no they are fannying / dicking around with the genderwoowoo shiz.
When lockdown kicked in the recycling yards closed and soon the country roads around my area where experiencing flytipping as folk dumped the excess waste they were generating by being at home all the time, and that wouldn’t fit in their recently reduced sized wheelie bins.
So loads of hours now required to pick up other people’s shite from laybys, as well as the never ending task of cleaning up the usual levels of litter folk driving along the roads think it acceptable to lob out the window as they traverse our bonnie countryside.
I spent my recent birthday alone, walking the local roadside filling more binbags of detritus produced by these twats.
The local village bottle banks have been full for a couple of weeks so folk just dump the bottles and jars next to them. I couldn’t help but notice some of the jars were still half full of pickled beetroot and jams… FFS are people really that dumb or fuckin lazy to understand how recycling system work.
Another local dullard thinks it’s ok to put milk bottles still have full of soured milk in the home recycling bin where the soured cheese will inevitably contaminate all the paper packaging when it is compacted in the collection lorry.
Never in the decades of my entrapment in this coagulation of stardust, have I wished more to be abducted by aliens…
Fuck it, I’m off to pour the rest of that Merlot now and see if I can get my alcohol level high enough to the point I experience spontaneous human combustion and oxidise myself back to the individual space compost atomic elements of which I am currently constituted.
“Alex Massie hits thenail on the head today.
“Here is Nicola Sturgeon, speaking in the Scottish parliament this week:
“I deal with confidential matters every day of my life . . . I do not gossip about those things, even to my husband. I am the first minister of the country, not the office gossip, and I take my responsibilities in that role extremely seriously.”
And here is Nicola Sturgeon, speaking to the Daily Record in 2012:
“Being in the same kind of line of work [as my husband] has its upsides and its downsides. The upside is that Peter [Murrell] understands what’s going on and why I am late home all the time. The downside is that you just end up talking about it all the time and you never leave it””
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snps-power-coup…
Says whatever suits her at the time. She’s full of shit.
@ Daisy and Dan thanks for your links to Hanlon’s article but I am sorry to say , this just echoes more gradualist waffle , more discussion , more assemblies , more conferences , more time WASTED, when time is the thing we don’t have , and then it is still down to ST NICLA and HER chosen ones to pick the manifesto
Dan you remember months ago I proposed a form , an A4 sheet that people can individually download as a DECLARATION to be sent to ALL their SNP MP’S, MSP’S and Sturgeon herself STATING
TO NICOLA STURGEON AND THE HIERARCHY OF THE SNP PARTY
I DECLARE THAT I JOE BLOGS RESIDING AT 111 INDEPENDENCE STREET , PAISLEY , POSTCODE , WILL NOT VOTE SNP AT THE FORTHCOMING ELECTION OR ANY FUTURE ELECTION UNTIL/UNLESS NICOLA STURGEON OR WHOEVER FOLLOWS HER AS FM , STATES CATEGORICALLY , UNEQUIVOCALLY AND PUBLICLY THAT THE FORTHCOMING HOLYROOD ELECTION WILL BE A PLEBISCITE ELECTION , WHEREBY IF A MAJORITY OF SEATS AT THAT ELECTION ARE WON BY INDEPENDENCE SUPPORTING PARTIES THAT WILL CONSTITUTE AN INSTRUCTION BY SOVEREIGN SCOTS TO IMMEDIATELY ENTER INTO NEGOTIATION TO DISSOLVE THE TREATY OF UNION AND THE DISBURSEMENT OF JOINT ASSETS
FURTHERMORE THAT THE GRA BILL AND HCB WILL BE SHELVED UNTIL POST INDEPENDENCE WHERE IT WILL BE DECIDED BY A REFERENDUM IN SCOTLAND BY SCOTS
we all keep saying what can we do to make ourselves heard and listened to in this covid situation , if enough of us do this can the SNP and Sturgeon carry on ignoring us
Does anyone know how to do a downloadable form like this that has the capacity to include a counter where we could gauge the numbers responding , also those on social media can include a downlink and push it , I have asked you before Stuart if you would be amenable to hosting this , I ask again for the sake of getting these bast Ards to listen
Some good comments on here today, covering at a broader church than usual.
Those who lack insight and imagination tend to be limited to low-hanging fruit. Though the incompetent manner in which the party has approached gender equality, suggests they are rather ignorant of the law and relational approaches towards achieving justice. So it’s no wonder they’re pish at what the purport to be.
So here’s a look at “Constitutional Rights, Balancing, and Rationality”.
http://www.corteidh.or.cr/tablas/a63.pdf
“The article begins with an outline of the balancing construction as developed by the German Federal Constitutional court since the Lüth decision in 1958. It then takes up two objections to this approach raised by Jürgen Habermas. The first maintains that balancing is both irrational and a danger for rights, depriving them of their normative power. The second is that balancing takes one out of the realm of right and wrong, correctness and incorrectness, and justification, and, thus, out of the realm of the law.
The article attempts to counter these objections by showing that there exists a rational structure of balancing that can be made explicit by a “Law of Balancing” and a “Disproportionality Rule.” These rules show, first, that balancing is not a danger for rights but, on the contrary, a necessary means of lending them protection, and second, that balancing is not an alternative to argumentation but an indispensable form of rational practical discourse.”
twathater says:
“…we all keep saying what can we do to make ourselves heard and listened to in this covid situation , if enough of us do this can the SNP and Sturgeon carry on ignoring us.”
Good idea, sir. We got busy, made lists & retweeted & got people interested in changing the NEC members & getting the right people in – and it made a difference.
We got organised & got people mailing their MSP/MPs over the Rape Crisis Bill – and it made a difference.
Let’s go for three. Perhaps this too will be lucky. It is ALWAYS WORTH A GO!
Thank you for this! Would you allow me to Tweet your post? If we can get it retweeted & sent round, well… who knows?? But not trying SOMETHING isn’t an option.
@James Che –
Just to be clear, I wasn’t having a go at you last night and I apologise if my comment came across that way.
No sincere contributor to this place wants anything but a referendum tomorrow. But most NSP voters and supporters across the country just cannot accept what Rev Stu was warning us about i.e. that this SNP has no intention of getting us a referendum, by whatever means.
That’s really not easy to accept.
When ‘The Betrayer’ was published here it was a watershed moment for many. Some left in disgust and have never returned despite evidence mounting weekly that Rev was right. Some already knew the horrible truth but had kept it to themselves. Others, like meself, were still in denial but knew, from long and weary, that Rev normally calls it right.
It’s now over ten months since that post was published here. Ten months everyone has had to face up to the bare-arsed truth. And still they refuse to accept it. That wilful ignorance has allowed the FM and her ministers to sit on their big fat armchairs while the people who voted them in ‘for one job and one job only’ look on in despair.
With such a huge rift in the basic perception of reality, there’s no prospect of seeing the basic cohesion required to launch the kind of action you allude to. And unless some indy supporters wake the fuck up, there isn’t likely to be.
Perhaps Brexit will provide a sufficient shock to shake scales from some eyes?
https://wingsoverscotland.com/?s=the+betrayer
@tarisgal
The tide is turning against sturgeon. I already see folk on line waking up to her failure.
She didn’t get her woke mates MSP gigs
Gethins didn’t get Perth and she had to get the NEC to nobble Cherry to get Angus in Edin Central
Her supporters lost out in the NEC elections
Her MSPs refused to follow her directions last Thursday
She has the enquiry to deal with
Covid is still raging
She’s failed, she is no good at strategy. She is weak, cowardly and cautious. Not the type of characteristics needed to lead an independence campaign
So keep weakening her, pin the strategic failure in her
And hope that someone will finish her off.
@ twathater
Aye, can remember well the various discussions and suggestions on how to exert leverage but at that time they didn’t seem to get traction.
tarisgal is right to point out that recently, for some reason, possibly folk waking up to impending EU leaving reality, that the NEC changes and gender / sex word amendment did indeed gain engagement and take up.
We don’t need to wait for elections to excert our will. All the main political parties have databases of their supporters. All it would need to gain attention of the SNP is for enough supporters to contact them and ask that they update their Activate system to remove them as an SNP voter unless a certain condition is met.
Many constituencies aren’t won by huge margins so with enough folk expressing their intentions and wonts it may well remind certain elected officials to get with the program or they will be toast.
@Denise 6.21pm
The gradualists and their gender-woo outriders may have suffered some setbacks recently, but I remain unconvinced that the party is in a place yet to face the leadership down and perform the long overdue clear out. Even if there is a power struggle which the “fundies” win, I remain unconvinced that there is now sufficient time to make the May 2021 elections plebiscitary.
That means that we’re basically stuck with 4 years of negotiating the dystopian reality of a no-deal brexit UK, with no imminent election and no prospect of an agreed election.
A lot can happen in 4 years of course, and I’d love to be proven wrong. I’ll happily eat humble pie and admit my error if things fall differently, but I just don’t see a positive outcome absent some political earthquake between now and May 2021. Stranger things have happened of course, but even if Sturgeon resigns and takes some of the more unsavoury parts of her team with her, there’s no guarantee any replacement will be able to do anything much in the short to medium term.
If the SNP lets us down – which I think is more and more likely – we need to be thinking what the alternatives should look like.
Ian brotherhood, thank you for your comment and understanding,
I have to reiterate what I said earlier, I knew that I would be verbally attacked for what I said yesterday, I did perceive this would be so, before I pressed the submit button, Because as you say sometime just like stu, you have to say something’s sometimes that others wish to ignore, not because their ignorant, but because information is hard to recognise as relating to the current issues or believe when first heard,
And just like stu who gives us a wake up call in manner that opens our eyes and frightens us, thus automatically causing retaliation,
I am however forever hopeful that the people of Scotland will one day wake up, over come their fears and recognise that when they work together, at the same time, and with a foundation that may have legality to it, we may yet beat our politicians and governments without fighting or lifting one weapon towards another human,
*agreed referendum* not election in para. 2
Sausage fingers 🙂
@Andy Ellis
We are long struggle after wasting 6 years
So what is faster replacing NS
Or
Setting up a new party that will take over from the SNP
If we had a new snp regime and a strong list party we could use 2021 as an Indy plebiscite.
@ tarisgal 6.02pm that would be ideal unfortunately ??? I’m not on social media and I and we would welcome ANY feedback , as you and others say we (possibly) influenced the other outcomes but we don’t know if we would this time and we won’t know if we don’t try
Sturgeon and Co either listen or don’t but at least that would inform us to vote accordingly , they could just ignore our threats but I personally am NOT kidding
Ian brotherhood, thank you for your comment and understanding,
I have to reiterate what I said earlier, I knew that I would be verbally attacked for what I said yesterday, I did perceive this would be so, before I pressed the submit button, Because as you say sometime just like stu, you have to say something’s sometimes that others wish to ignore, not because their ignorant, but because information is hard to recognise as relating to the current issues or believe when first heard,
And just like stu who gives us a wake up call in manner that opens our eyes and frightens us, thus automatically causing retaliation,
I am however forever hopeful that the people of Scotland will one day wake up, over come their fears and recognise that when they work together, at the same time, and with a foundation that may have legality to it, we may yet beat our politicians and governments without fighting or lifting one weapon towards another human, we can do this,
We just have to wait for others to catch on, but time is precious , hence the kick up the backside wake up rhetoric I used yesterday.
I don’t mind being the one to take the put downs if it were to motivate the the people out of their fear, and make them realise the people own the power to make the changes, not governments, this applies especially in Scotland.
There’s always hope Ian, and I am setting the target an aiming for it.
For anyone thinking that by notifying the SNP of your decision to withhold your vote for SNP, and they will update Activate accordingly. Thus sending out a great big warning shot locally and nationally to the Management…
Please be aware, thanks to them failing (twice) to withdraw my contact details from their data base – they sent me literature last month, in which it was revealed that in 2019 GE and for upcoming elections – no information re voters intentions are to be obtained and collected.
Which is interesting, since, it is one of the main tools by which the SNP were more prepared than the other parties.
Times we live in eh. Course, its ALL because of Covid. And in no way the deliberate nobbling of information that would show they are pissing off their own support.
If/when they throw the Holyrood Election they will – in all honesty – be able to claim – ‘who knew? If only there had been some warning.”
@ Ian Brotherhood, ‘And unless some indy supporters wake the fuck up, there isn’t likely to be.
Perhaps Brexit will provide a sufficient shock to shake scales from some eyes?’
Re the above – St Nicla and co will follow the following agenda, I suspect.
Double down on, ‘steady as she goes, don’t scare the horses, isn’t Boris terrible, Covid, Covid, Covid – LOOK AT THE POLLS’.
In addition there will be increased pressure on all to be ‘loyal’ to the SNP – ‘We Can’t Do Indy Without the SNP,’ all and any others are Spies I tell you – SPIES.
Hints of an Indy Ref ‘sometime soon’ will be ever so strong, and cleverly worded.
But in the mean time, if you were a No Voter, and a Remain, and you’ve finally been been convinced of the need to hold your nose and vote for SNP/Indy – as a means to save your business and/or job – and you lose it between January and May.
I’m struggling to see why you would hold your nose to vote SNP for a bit of more of the same, horse bolted stable, oh look just as much a bunch of untrustworthy troughers as the last lot.
New labour triangulated the policies (so there was nothing between tory and labour policy) and invested in the ‘personality’ of Tony Blair. Millions of voters stopped voting – because there was no choice between them. Big result for the WM Establishment. New Labour / New SNP – why change a good technique when it works.
If we end up voting for Indy candidates who have signed up to Plebiscite – it needs to be a guarantee that lasts past just May elections. Far too easy for them to get cosy feet too once elected.
Just a few thoughts.
Brexit talks extended again and again and again.
The EU seem to have the balls Scotland had in 2014.
How would you waste so much time with a pathological liar,
a man who signs international agreements he doesn’t understand
and happy to break the law at a drop of a hat?
Why on earth hadn’t the EU given up trying minimise England’s Brexit pain
a long time ago?
Westminster are doing Covid- if sorts, Brexit, the Internal Market, filling the pockets of all Tory
Supporters under the guise of PPE contracts and building a new English Scottish office to take
Over from Holyrood but Holyrood SNP government state that they can only do Covid????
From Pish Washout’s Twitter…
“A year ago today it was the General Election. It was an election that restored our momentum, ended the Scottish Tory ‘mini boom’ and sparked the rise in support for independence. Since then practically every poll has shown majority support for independence.”
Stu, you should’ve titled the thread Vainglorious Bastards
Nally Anders @ 3.12
Excellent speech by Joanna Cherry, which almost gives the impression the 48 SNP MP’s might finally find the courage to hit Scotland’s sovereignty button on the 31st December.
A widnae haud ma braithe, tho ye nivver ken! Mebbe thay wull efter aw!
Worth repeating …
Westminster: obsessed with regalia.
Holyrood: obsessed with genitalia.
Replacing Nicola Sturgeon with a strong leader would go a long way to solving the problems we are experiencing. That should result in changes to the leadership team. However a significant number of SNP members seem to be satisfied with the performance of the leadership. There’s a reluctance to listen to anyone examining their past record and the company they keep. That is one reason why it is so difficult to obtain change and improvement but the necessary changes will be achieved only from inside the party. Bringing new parties to the current standing of the SNP will take years and great expense. Maybe those exhorting change from the sidelines would consider joining the party to swell the numbers and increase the effectiveness of the anti-Sturgeon bloc, if such a faction exists.
That, of course, raises other questions. For example why would anyone want to join the party to swell its coffers for the benefit of the overpaid mediocrities currently running it? Why would anyone who’s considered Nicola Sturgeon’ s past record and the company she keeps want to contribute to more of the same?
Given the shortage of time how do we break this deadlock?
Effigy, We the people have to by pass the governments, in a legal manner, therein lies the solution,
Not UDI. Because,
When the people of a country have it in writing, that the people of that country hold sovereignty, they can make that call.
We do.
When it is written internationally that people have the right to self determination, that includes us.
Effigy, We the people have to by pass the governments, in a legal manner, therein lies the solution,
Not UDI. Because,
When the people of a country have it in writing, that the people of that country hold sovereignty, they can make that call.
We do.
When it is written internationally that people have the right to self determination, that includes us.
We need to use this lawfully written information and turn it to our legal advantage. We do not have to wait for any governments referendum on our, claim of right, as there is no previous protocol, there are no rules as to how it should be done, except by the people,when the people choose, that’s us.
We the people have to by pass the governments, in a legal manner, therein lies the solution,
Not UDI. Because,
When the people of a country have it in writing, that the people of that country hold sovereignty, they can make that call.
We do.
When it is written internationally that people have the right to self determination, that includes us.
We need to use this lawfully written information and turn it to our legal advantage. We do not have to wait for any governments referendum on our, claim of right, as there is no previous protocol, there are no rules as to how it should be done, except by the people,when the people choose, that’s us.
The problem with the UN Cbarter is that it is too vague. It believes Federalism is a solution to demark people jn a nation. It does not necessarily state a people should only be Independent.
You could be in court for decades arguing these points.
Remember the UK. signed up to the Charter because it sas deliberately vague
@ Daisy
As it was myself that mentioned Activate. I was talking in the context of using it as a lever in a process.
Whether such a process ultimately exerted enough force to achieve a specific outcome is by the by. It would still be a means of notification of intent and pressuring a reaction which would identify if the candidates we may be voting for will represent our wishes or toe a party line decided by the remaining cabal.
The recent campaign /activism re. the gender / sex wording amendment, even if it successfully achieved its goal, the very time constrained nature of it actually gave notice and facilitated the ability for current MSPs to hide and follow a path of political expediency, rather than show themselves for where they actually stood on the matter.
Politics by its very nature is divisive, so in these absolutely unprecedented times for the future of our nation, just what is wrong with asking those who seek to represent us entering a contract that obligates them to pursue our wonts. Such a strategy would show us who they really are and where their true allegiances lie. They either step up, or they can step aside.
If they won’t sign up then we know where they stand and we can pursue or support other Parties or individuals that better align with our interests.
Why should we waste more ever reducing precious time on the next democratic event to risk yet another test where we’ll be choosing to munch yet more carrots and jam the morra on a maybees aye maybees no undefined and unsecured womandate for something or other.
Dan, I entirely concur with your comment at 5:22 pm regarding waste management. It is exactly as you say it is and quite soul destroying. I remember there was talk of building a power plant in Glasgow based on the incineration of refuse like the one in Berlin, but, like all good things promised to us, nothing came of it. Which is a shame, because we would only need two or three incinerators to cover the entire country.
The bulk uplift service in Glasgow used to be weekly, but that has now changed to a request based service (online with no direct phone number) and the result is, predictably, bulk waste dumped here, there and everywhere. To my mind, politicians have failed us at every level.
And as you say Dan, sometimes the only way to cope is to have a wee drink. I’m not sure about aliens though. I reckon anyone of a higher intelligence who came near Earth would give us a body-swerve!
@Daisy Walker, 7.32pm
I get what you’re saying about the SNP’s decision not to collect details of voting intentions but the way round that is to deliver ‘by hand’ as it were.
The fight to replace the Woke NEC wasn’t conducted in a poll which could be ignored, it was by and large done via directly targeted social media messages and e-mail.
If folk online make a declaration of the kind suggested by Twathater (5.38pm) directly to their MPs/MSPs it would be hard to ignore – and even if they did, it would be noted by others.
The claim of right is written in the brief constitution of England and Scotland, with no amendments, as altering it alters the constitution of Great Britain, the treaty of the union, and is reiterated in the Scotland act, in the smith commission, and in July 2018 without contention.
It is written down in legislation,
This is important, as it does not prevent the sovereign people of Scotland, making that call to discard the recognised governments of the day for better or alternative government of our choice, legally.
When you read it, there is no mention as to the protocol as to how we do this.
It is strange to say the least that England has not changed this as it disadvantages England. But perhaps legally they cannot without jeopardising great Britain.
So a serious piece of law.
That is our first legal leverage.
So We use our claim of right to disintangle ourselves from the parliament of Great Britain,
@ Denise 6.57pm
I agree that replacing Sturgeon and making May 2021 elections plebiscitary is faster and that is possible, I’m just saying I don’t think it is probable. It gets less probable the closer we get to May 2021. As I said if Sturgeon resigns or is deposed soon there is some hope, but the influence of the gradualists and TRA extremists & entryists inside the party won’t just evaporate.
If nothing substantial happens before May allowing those elections to be branded plebiscitary by a revivified party and movement, we have to ask if the SNP is fit for purpose, or can be rendered so. I have considerable doubts it can.
Lets have the indy list parties issuing a mandate for a plebiscite election, and contest all the constituency seats as well. Scotland is now drinking in the last chance saloon.
Politrixs is indeed divisive, so that is why sound law is so important. Unfortunately you’re on to plumbs living in Scotland, as legal reason appears to have left the shores of Brexitania. A hugely bogus referendum results in a tiny minority to leave the EU, and our legal Establishment turns a blind eye to the doctrine of proportionality. It’s almost as if these cupid stunts live in a different reality. Or are perhaps not particularly supportive of democracy?
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/C638BB9E2E279EFAA2D506D528B35B85/S207183221900004Xa.pdf/law_language_and_knowledge_legal_transplants_from_a_cultural_perspective.pdf
The claim of right is written in the brief constitution of England and Scotland, with no amendments, as altering it alters the constitution of Great Britain, the treaty of the union, and is reiterated in the Scotland act, in the smith commission, and in July 2018 without contention.
It is written down in legislation,
This is important, as it does not prevent the sovereign people of Scotland, making that call to discard the recognised governments of the day for better or alternative government of our choice, legally.
When you read it, there is no mention as to the protocol as to how we do this.
It is strange to say the least that England has not changed this as it disadvantages England. But perhaps legally they cannot without jeopardising great Britain.
So a serious piece of law.
That is our first legal leverage.
So We use our claim of right to disintangle ourselves from the parliament of Great Britain,
Sorry for my comments coming up two or three time, it appears these comments do not go through the first time and I often have to add or subtract commentary to achieve my point,
Alec Lomax: “No, the people responsible for the brexit mess are those who voted Leave.”
Total cobblers. The ONLY people responsible for Scotland being part of England’s Brexit mess are the SNP Scottish Government which over more than four years totally failed to promote the benefits of the Scottish people’s mandate for an Indy alternative choice to having England’s Brexit imposed on us, while putting in place a Scottish-only delivery mechanism for that choice. Nobody else but the SNP is responsible for that dereliction of duty.
From 2014 onwards by prudent and caring policies – baby box, rape clause, bedroom tax – and seen to be resisting Westminster, the SNP won the confidence of a substantial majority of the Scots electorate.
Polls in the past decade showed a 50:50 balance for Indy,arguably a bit risky to pursue a referendum, hold off until polls return consistent +55% Yes for independence.
Then what happened?
Polls are at a consistent+55% and :
The NEC blocks Joanna Cherry wish to contest an MSP seat.
The general public become increasingly aware of the GRA proposals, and the Hate Crime proposals.
The First Minster publically backs Ms Spears as a MSP candidate.
The First Minister states that she is so engaged in the Covid pandemic that she must put politics aside!
The Indy Fighting Fund is declared to be “woven” into the SNP accounts.
Well-paid SNP and Civil Service individuals called to testify to the Salmond enquiry …”cannot recall… oops, I remember now”.
I could go on.
That Nicola Sturgeon considers that her energies should be solely applied to the Covid pandemic, of which she has no professional expertise, at the expense of not actively contesting Brexit is an abject neglect of her duties., and maybe, very convenient for her.
Really think inviting Covid in for Christmas with is a bad bad thing,
really bad,
it will probably be a resigning matter but i think Nicola needs to reverse decision about opening up for Christmas festivities,
drinking,lack of social distancing is a potent mixture for Covid to infest every home.
A peruse of the #BrexitShambles hastag on the twitter is quite the remedy for those suffering low blood pressure.
The classic fails just keep on a coming as we’re reminded of a news article from a year ago that another “Brexit” “bonus” was a French company part owned by the French Government winning the contract to monitor British fishing boats…
And just when I was for giving up scrolling down the feed… BOOM!
Was just suggesting a limited edition “Brexit” Allegro last week…
https://twitter.com/RonaldGranieri/status/1336463153375436800
-Scot Finlayson-
Everyone knows the risks wrt covid and Christmas.
Those that are having their family over for Christmas would have done it anyway; it’s been made legal because they thought that once people broke the rules for Christmas, they’d then just ignore them thereafter. This way, people are more likely to obey them once restrictions are re- imposed.
Much as I dislike Sturgeon, it’s not really her fault if people are going to fanny about.
Westminster’s legal authority derives from Treaty law and the Acts of Union that translated this agreement between nations, into a constitutional structure. So Westminster is not above the Common law. Which means it’s more than a bit presumptuous for Westminster to place itself above international law, and insist it has the legal authority to compel Scotland to follow a course of action that will be harmful to our national interests.
So here’s a look at a “Report on a theoretical review of the conceptualization and articulation of justice in legal theory”. As English Torydum is determined to rethink the British state’s obligations towards the people of Scotland. And not in a good way.
https://ethos-europe.eu/sites/default/files//docs/d3.1_website_report_complete.pdf
I’ll be honest. As soon as I see the words “Claim of Right” I generally just skip past on the basis that whatever is being said isn’t relevant to the world we live in. It reminds of those Scottish Sovereign guys that don’t give the cops details when they get pulled up for speeding… “I’m not driving, officer, I’m travelling, and I don’t know what my name is since my father might have lied when he filled in the birth certificate….”
But Scotland is a country. That’s for sure. And we could quite easily walk out of this UK cage, if we wanted to. It isn’t locked. We consent to everything, when you boil it all down, Hume was right about that.
Sturgeon could have approached all this very differently. A much more principled stance would have been to say “we simply aren’t doing Brexit, but all the best”. If push came to shove, the Scottish government could basically close Scotland down at the stroke of a pen. There’s plenty of options for doing that, all within the law, and the time was right to threaten to do it in 2017, when the farcical PM May told us “now was not the time”.
The big thing we have in our favour right now, and have had in our favour since The Brexit vote is the UK government’s fear of a constitutional crisis. This isn’t a good time for Westminster to be embroiled in such a crisis on top of everything else it’s dealing with. The last thing they want is attention from currency speculators.
Anyway, we do consent to all this crap we put up with. We delegate the job of bottling it to politicians, but it’s becoming obvious that we – the people – are at the root of the problem. Foreigners will no doubt see that more clearly than we do. We have no excuse for putting up with the grubby Sturgeons of the world any more than we have excuses for being dominated by England.
When you stop consenting to bullshit and bullying and start resisting it, it tends to stop. That’s something we are happy to teach our kids but when you apply it to adults and politics you get attacked from all sides.
Oh well.
Oops….A hugely bogus referendum results in a tiny majority to leave the EU…..
From Kathleen Nutt in the National ,
“ NICOLA Sturgeon must “seize the day” and hold a second independence referendum as “soon as practicable” after the Holyrood elections in May – even if Boris Johnson fails to agree a new vote, according to a former Yes campaign chief. “
“ Dennis Canavan, who was chair of the 2014 pro-independence campaign, said the vote should take place next Autumn and warned that if it did not the Scottish Government could be perceived to be “pussyfooting around” and may lose vital political momentum. “
https://archive.vn/mNzin
The comments are interesting ,
Rev Stuart Campbell ,
I see that a Wings party is mentioned in the comments ,
“ I keep hoping for a wings or endorsed by wings pro-EU party running in the constituency. “
For some time now it has been evident to me that Sturgeon has no intention of pursuing indy and I believe she is making herself unpopular as a way out. I think its also apparent that she has neither the commitment or the brains to deal with the logistics of separation. I think there is something definitely weird about her.
But I am also angry at the spineless majority of MP/MSP`S who have contributed nothing to independence and seem to be in it just for the money and status.
People the reason I made the declaration proposal at 5.38pm is that we are all desperately seeking ways to FORCE STURGEON to make the 2021 HR election a plebicite
We can’t go to HR , we can’t march in AUOB numbers on bute house , we can’t chap Sturgeon’s door , the only way we can produce the numbers is either by emailing our MP’s and MSP’s which we did , but they didn’t even respond to them , so we don’t know if it was instrumental in forcing their hand to vote for the amendment
I agree that it would be better to get rid of Sturgeon and her cabal but that takes us back to the time factor , is there enough time to refresh the leadership and direction of travel , and even if there is time ( which I doubt) would a new leader just follow Sturgeon’s playbook
I am sick of politicians ignoring voters and their wishes , WE have an opportunity here to waken these barstewards up and show them we will not be ignored and if they do they will pay for it , they will NOT be voted for , they will lose their BIG SALARIES , pension pots and comfy slippers , if Sturgeon choses not to do OUR bidding then that just points out to everyone that she is intransigent and NOT for independence
WE CAN DO THIS WE CAN FORCE THEIR ACTIONS , THE INTERNET CAN WORK FOR US
tell me what you think
Legally placing feelz over realz, requires the law to turn a blind eye to legal method that is essential to respecting the bio-neurological individuality the TRAs so prize. Totally bonkers and why cognitive law is so important to legal rights. If only I could emigrate. That’s unlikely, so here’s as a look at “Normative and Institutional Dimensions of Rights’ Adjudication Around the World”. As I don’t have much more than hope left.
https://content.sciendo.com/configurable/contentpage/journals$002fbjals$002f8$002f1$002farticle-p139.xml
“The implications of incommensurability for rights’ adjudication tend to be overlooked in much of contemporary constitutional theory. This paper criticizes the dominant “one right-answer” approach to conflicts of rights, and develops an alternative approach that is better suited to constitutional rights’ adjudication in contemporary pluralistic legal orders.
It is submitted that the normative reasons for having courts undertake the value-choices implicit in constitutional rights’ adjudication, and for preferring certain legal methodologies over others, must reflect the role of courts in resolving social disputes in the light of specific aspects of the economic, social, and legal life of the polities in which those courts operate. It is further argued that any theory that builds from this approach needs to answer two inter-related questions: when is constitutional rights’ adjudication by courts appropriate, and how rights’ adjudication should be pursued.”
Wake up and face the truth, Scotland is fucked any way you look at it. The Rev posts at least weekly on here about the failing of the SNP and exactly why the SNP should be run out of town but not one single fucker in Scotland has the gumption to do anything about it.
All you get on this board is simply the same handful of people, day in, day fucking out, agreeing with everything the Rev posts and on a Saturday, telling that guy Chris that he’s the best cartoonist since Walt fucking Disney.
The default for anyone who disagrees with anything SNP or Mrs. Murrell is ‘Yoon’, ‘Britnat’ or my personal favourite, ’77th Brigade’.
Because that’s all you lot are good for, name calling, whining, whingeing and all the fucking rest of it.
None of you deserve an Independent Scotland because not one single one of you will do anything about it. You all want it handed to you on a fucking plate.
The Rev’s doing his best and doing what he can and he does it very well but even he knows that he’s ultimately wasting his time because it’s his blog and even he must be able to see what I’m seeing.
Your big day out social club, AUOB are nowhere to be seen in all of this, not a fucking cheep from them because they know that they’ve been caught out too. The anti-vaxxers organised and marched on Bute House yesterday within at most, a couple of months, something AUOB can’t and won’t do and do you know what I think is the reason?
Coronavirus.
They crowed, exaggerated and lied about the numbers on their days out but now with social distancing, it will be quite possible to actually count the bodies and their numbers in attendance will be shown up for the lies that they are.
Because that’s what Scotland does. It lies and sadly, the most damning thing about that statement is that it lies to itself.
So….
What’s going to happen now is the usual daft fuckers will crawl on here and start calling one, two, or even all three of the names I mentioned above.
Now, I won’t give a shit, Mrs. Murrell won’t give a shit and that other fucker Wishart won’t give a shit and do you know why we won’t give a shit?
It’s because we know that name calling is the best you’ve got.
All talk, no fucking action which is something you all have in common with the SNP.
Get your fucking fingers out for fucks sake and do something. Read a book, get some ideas, drag yourself away from watching Braveheart and getting teary eyed about Alex Salmond because although he’s giving it his best, the Rev can’t do this on his own.
Yes, a very heartening speech from Joanna Cherry. With the party hierarchy against her it will be difficult to rouse the troops, but let’s hope she can and gives Westminster a constitutional crisis for Christmas!
mist001
So you come on here ranting and raving and winging and moaning which is the very thing you are accusing posters on this site for doing.
So what exactly have you done to secure independence.
My take on this.
England and Wales voted for Brexit. However misguided it is not Scotland’s right to stop it. They should not have wasted 6 years doing that.
Instead they should have agreed not to interfere in England’s longest suicide note in history.
They should have had the referendum. Won it and then had their day in court. The fact that we haven’t even named a date for a referendum after 6 years. Is the biggest scandal of all.
If anyone writes to their SNP Branch and tells them that they will no longer vote SNP.
The chances that that information, that data, and the number of other similar minded members/voters, being recorded for the same expression of disagreement with the current aims of the SNP – are slim.
It is no protest at all, if no-one knows about it.
I’m not trying to rain on anyones parade. Could be it will work in some areas. It won’t do any harm.
For every single time, anyone, from any position, or angle, talks about a Referendum – at such a date/month/year – can we all please, work the calendar back, as soon as they do it.
It takes a Minimum of 9 months to hold a WM legit Indy Ref. A Holyrood Indy Ref – no-one knows how long that will be appealed in courts of law (yet).
So an Indy Ref 2 to be held in Aug 2021. Would need to be announced Now! Anyone see the problem.
And if you announce it Now, and lose the Holyrood election in May… it is not going to happen. The SNP have already left it too late.
And if you think back, they kept saying, ‘not until the terms of Brexit are known’, even thought their own research – along with everyone else’s was telling them Brexit is going to be horrific.
The timeline has been – ‘wheesht for Indy, Now is not the time, not until the terms of Brexit are known, not until the terms of Brexit are known, the polls aren’t moving, COVID, COVID, COVID, LOOK AT THE POLLS, LOOK AT THE POLLS, Brexit – ah well, so be it, but the terms are now known and shit – ah well, too late now.
In an ideal world we would have 2 prominent Indy parties – one pushing for Plebiscite – the other proposing the more gradual Indref2 options – backed up with ‘a take it, or if you don’t answer clearly we’ll take it as a no’ request for a S30 order before the May elections – so that the ‘no’ can be used as voting ammunition…. in a plebiscite election.
And lastly – timing is everything, and I have no idea if its better before the Christmas break (while we are still in transition with EU) or after when WM reconvenes.
But if a group of SNP rebels walk out of WM – and stand for a Plebiscite election – it will be international news, and probably the only thing that would push the SNP into the aforesaid S30 request.
I can think of 2 outstanding MP’s who have extremely successful careers prior to politics – who could blaze the trail.
Mist, the problem isn’t people that visit this website. It’s people that don’t visit this website. We on this website are a bunch of comparatively unusual freaks.
I’d say about 75% of what you’d call “ordinary people” don’t give a fuck about politics. All they seem to care about is polishing ornaments, football, and their hair.
If Brexit gets so bad that those “ordinary people” suffer, you have all the ingredients of civil unrest in this country. Who knows, maybe that’s the way it will go. Until the masses wake up, we are getting fleeced.
One thing’s for sure, Sturgeon and her outfit aren’t going to do a thing. She’s planning for the next election, not the 2021 one. We’ve got another 10 years of her theatrics.
The disappeared ringfenced fund is another good reason for them to do nothing towards indyref2. Not that they are short of reasons. Life at the trough is pretty good for them.
@ twathater at 5:38 pm
You could write via a receipted e-mail, that way at least you know they got it,
You could ask for an acknowledgement of the letter.
The two seem the same but not
@ Daisy Walker at 10:32 pm
Couple of problems
“If anyone writes to their SNP Branch and tells them that they will no longer vote SNP.”
You will get drummed out
“The chances that that information, that data, and the number of other similar minded members/voters, being recorded for the same expression of disagreement with the current aims of the SNP – are slim.”
I’m led to believe the data held is incorrect and lack luster at best
” The SNP have already left it too late.” Yes
One of the golden rules of statehood is not to interfere in the internal affairs of another nation. This is precisely what the SNP were doing by trying to stop Brexit. It shows that the SNP, under the current leadership, are simply not independently-minded.
“but not one single fucker in Scotland has the gumption to do anything about it.”
Plenty of us Sovereign Scots beavering away behind the scenes with a quiet professionalism ready for when the Tories light the Orange, Red, White and Blue touch paper 😉
What have you done about it from France?
@Mist001 says at 9:59 pm
Apart from coming BTL o WoS advocating voting for British Nationalist Parties and talking pish about what elections you’ve voted in in Scotland!
I SUSPECT YOU’VE DONE FUCK ALL.
You are SCOTCH MIST001
“The phrase ‘Scotch mist’ is used humorously to refer to something that is hard to find or doesn’t exist – something imagined.”
Nothing humorous about you though Misty!
“You are SCOTCH MIST001”
Gotta hand it to you, that’s pretty good.
Daisy Walker says: at 10:32 pm
“If anyone writes to their SNP Branch and tells them that they will no longer vote SNP…”
Maybe I’ve failed to make the point adequately. It’s not simply about a sole individual or two telling the SNP you won’t vote for them. Telling them you won’t vote for them is just giving away any leverage you have.
The idea is to exert force through the threat of enough folk withdrawing their support to influence a policy change or to identify if a potential candidate is worthy of your support.
“It is no protest at all, if no-one knows about it.”
Exactly, hence why any particular protest method would need to be discussed, and once a strategy and objective is agreed upon the plan could be shared widely to build to the point it would get noticed.
We know from past experiences lots of folk resigned their SNP membership as individuals and got little or no response for their actions.
However, the recent MSP Candidate selection process, the NEC nominations process, the NEC Delegate voting result, the gender / sex wording amendment, all were influenced in a certain direction for the very reason that folk did engage, unify, and got behind the ideas which achieved relatively positive outcomes, so it shows we do hold the power to influence and change things.
A certain btl commenter on this very thread was extremely instrumental and a driving force in facilitating those results through their hard work and activism.
All that proves there are ways to defeat the iron law of oligarchy if we bother to use them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy
Do you think some personal butler at Bute House says to Sturgeon,,,
“Hey Nikla, you are gettin fuckin hammered on that Wings Over Scotland blog?”
Hatuey, your assessment is astute, that is because the excitement, Hope and enthusiasm has been expended by the snp in the last six years, we have often turned on each other out of exasperation and frustration, watching the open opportunities the snp had disappear. Along with our hopes and dreams of a new world for Scotland, some fought, some wandered off, and some turned on their nearest and dearest, some split into different sites, becoming almost opposition,in fact. At present covid is added to frustration and mix which also causes a divide.
But now we need to to reawaken the old enthusiasm, to give new hope, to find a new path, As far as I can recall it was not just a few politicians that inspired the yes movement to grow so big and so fast, it was us, the grassroots, we all gelled for one reason, for one moment in history and became a melting pot of ideas and ideals, we laughed and joked, we had light hearts, we even had this after the initial disappointment of 2014,
This has deteriorated since then, slowly, so slowly, we did not realise that the problem might lie with the very party we had placed all our hopes in, until stu brought some facts to light,
Now most have this feeling of despair and desolation, like standing in amongst the dead on a (lost) battlefield,
This is psychological damage,
The fight or flight symdrome, and we feel we lost, when we decided to stay in the fight,
But this is where your astute in your assessment, THAT battle was lost …..but the fight goes on. For those of us still standing, we must make sure that this time it is not game, that we must have a combined strategy, a legal battle, that with the enthusiasm of 2014 can be done at the drop of a hat,
I would welcome that melting pot of ideas once more, that laughter and fast wit we all have needs to be inspired again, meanwhile I think it’s time to become people of a nation once more, through the claim of right.
Hatuey, your assessment is astute, that is because the excitement, Hope and enthusiasm has been expended by the snp in the last six years, we have often turned on each other out of exasperation and frustration, watching the open opportunities the snp had disappear. Along with our hopes and dreams of a new world for Scotland, some fought, some wandered off, and some turned on their nearest and dearest, some split into different sites, becoming almost opposition,in fact. At present covid is added to frustration and mix which also causes a divide.
But now we need to to reawaken the old enthusiasm, to give new hope, to find a new path, As far as I can recall it was not just a few politicians that inspired the yes movement to grow so big and so fast, it was us, the grassroots, we all gelled for one reason, for one moment in history and became a melting pot of ideas and ideals, we laughed and joked, we had light hearts, we even had this after the initial disappointment of 2014,
This has deteriorated since then, slowly, so slowly, we did not realise that the problem might lie with the very party we had placed all our hopes in, until stu brought some facts to light,
Now most have this feeling of despair and desolation, like standing in amongst the dead on a (lost) battlefield,
This is psychological damage,
The fight or flight symdrome, and we feel we lost, when we decided to stay in the fight,
But this is where your astute in your assessment, THAT battle was lost …..but the fight goes on. For those of us still standing, we must make sure that this time it is not game, that we must have a combined strategy, a legal battle, that with the enthusiasm of 2014 can be done at the drop of a hat,
I would welcome that melting pot of ideas once more, that laughter and fast wit we all have needs to be inspired again, meanwhile I think it’s time to become people of a nation once more, through the claim of right.
Sorry same problem submitting article.
Dear Dan,
with regards what you say, for those that choose that route, I sincerely hope it is successful.
Kind regards
@ Daisy with respect did you or others the like of James Che read my post , I didn’t mention branches I am NOT an SNP member and don’t wish to be ,BUT I am a voter so my view and opinion is just as valid as any other
TBH I am NOT interested in contacting branches as we have all seen how deeply they are invested in the holy one and it would be nigh on impossible to get them to change their minds
But also the SNP won’t win elections with just the membership vote they NEED the votes of the wider electorate , as in the amendment debacle it wasn’t just members who contacted and emailed their MP’s and MSP’s it was the electorate at large who did the threatening of NO voting and possibly swung it
Just think if a good proportion of people threatened to withhold their vote unless Sturgeon agreed to the terms of the declaration which includes the shelving and pausing of the GRA and HCB don’t you think the females who are outraged at these policies wouldn’t consider signing their own declaration
ALL I’m trying to do is create a means which enables a large amount of people to show their displeasure and anger at Sturgeon’s and the SNP’s failure to recognise that they WORK FOR US and they had better listen and MOVE
twathater, you fight a a good cause in trying to return the snp into what it once was, all due respect given.
Been up late painting but Well passed my bedtime now, see everyone tomorrow.
Isn’t it quite amazing that the UK government didn’t even feel it was necessary to give Scotland some fig leaf of a token gesture role at the Brexit talks? Nothing.
Every country in the EU is getting a say in our future and the future of our kids, and there isn’t even the pretence that we are involved. It’s really remarkable, when you think about it. It’s as if we don’t exist.
They’re all sitting there haggling over access to our fishing grounds, access to our resources and markets, and we don’t even have someone pretending to be looking after our interests at the table.
How embarrassing is that for the SNP? What delusion is it that keeps Nicola Sturgeon going — how could it even be possible that she still thinks she stands for something?
Here’s my advice to everybody. Try to look at the funny side. I know it’s difficult, but try. It’ll keep you sane. She’s actually the most comical, blundering, farcical politician in all history. Think David Brent or Life of Brian. Laugh at her then laugh at yourself and the rest of us who thought this monkey would lead us to the promised land.
Stop Brexit? Hahahahahahahahaa. It didn’t even make sense. My god, she couldn’t even save the dogs’ tails. Every cause she champions ends up pressed into her face like a custard pie, every one.
@ James Che 2.41am with respect James I am not interested in NS or the SNP all I am interested in is independence for our country, like you I am just trying to find a best way to access that , and if that means rattling a few cages TOUGH
We all complain that NS and the SNP are not listening , if we flooded the MP , MSP and Sturgeon email in boxes with threats of NOT voting for them , surely they would have to be STUPID not to listen
ALL I’m trying to do is create a means which enables a large amount of people to show their displeasure and anger at Sturgeon’s and the SNP’s failure to recognise that they WORK FOR US and they had better listen and MOVE
You mean like, say, a proposal for a wee book that points out the failings of the SNP party, alternative routes to home rule, and a crowd funder of 20k that offers to distribute said book a few weeks afore the election or donate to indie2 war chest if there is a material change in direction, policy or leadership?
EU negotiator says UK has moved on Fishing
But UK Gov subsidies still the main point of disagreement.
There goes Scottish Fishing-Again!
Re: contacting MSPs and MPs
PERSUASION, the carrot, is usually a better motivator than a threat, the stick.
Take the positive view instead of the negative – you can say the same thing but instead of saying you will not vote for them if they don’t do something, you say you will vote for them if they do do the other thing (and maybe offer to promote their case if they do agree to that position to make it more carrotty).
It might seem like semantics, a twist around of words etc – but how you say something is important – make the positive case, say what outcome you do want, tell them what you want from them to make it happen, and say that it’s a hardline issue. (They will know without you having to say outright, they will not get your vote if they make the wrong choice in their answer).
Leave the threats silently hovering about in the background, by not stating outright your intentions you leave those as an unknown, and peoples’ imaginations work wonders on making a threat far more extreme than it ever is 🙂 (used extensively in horror movies, the scariest ones are when the camera focuses elsewhere or on fuzzy shadows, throw in a few screams and some crunching slobbering noises, and your own brain fills in the blanks very effectively).
A positive email also sounds more friendly, and they will think YOU are still worth trying to keep on board – an angry diatribe may be seen as a lost cause to them – it is more likely to keep dialogue open even if they think their initial reply can be a pile of political-fluff pish, then you can start laying into them.
Doesn’t this all just boil down to one question – Can Scotland hold a binding vote on independence? That could be a referendum or a plebiscitary election with the candidate vote being used as the ‘referendum’to allow a simple yes/no majority to win.
I know that Martin Keatings is trying to resolve this through the courts, but why have the SNP avoided legally challenging the right to have a vote?
Nicola Sturgeon decided that her definition of what’s needed for a vote on independence, the S30 ‘gold standard’ that relies on Westminster agreeing to it, is the only legal route to a vote. But it 100% avoids a resolution while very weakly, appears to want a vote based solely on moral reasons rather the necessary legal grounds. In other words – it’s subterfuge (defined in a dictionary as Deception used to achieve an end). The end in my view is to avoid a vote for whatever reasons she has. No point in speculating what these may be, it’s Deception that is the key word. Through Sturgeon, the SNP have categorically avoided resolving the question of whether Scotland can hold a binding vote on independence.
The inability to address Brexit, Covid and the continuing economic drain placed on Scotland by being controlled by Westminster are all Sturgeon’s fault. She chose and still chooses to fight a Westminster, that categorically will not agree to a S30 regardless of who is PM (all three UK parties regularly queue up to state their absolute refusal to allow a vote on independence) on moral grounds alone.
The only way the vote issue will be resolved is by legal means. In terms of SNP actions, the blocking of Joanna Cherry as a candidate at Holyrood, the one person who has successfully challenged and more importantly, beaten the UK Government in court, shows the degree to which the SNP’s leadership has proven to be morally bankrupt, ironic since it’s the sole tactic they continue to rely on when dealing with a clearly deranged and moral free Westminster.
The Brexit negotiations with the EU have shown that while the EU does use moral arguments, when necessary these are backed up with legal ones too. It’s not hard to see how the EU would have fared if it had relied only on moral arguments, yet that is what Sturgeon and the current SNP have done and continue to do. The classic definition of insanity or subterfuge.
There is a much stronger suitable word but I’ll leave that to after the Alex Salmond case and the SNP accounts issues have been resolved. If Sturgeon is replaced, it will be because of legal issues and not moral ones. That would be fitting.
Hatuey says 3.15am
Every country in the EU is getting a say in our future and the future of our kids,and there isn’t even the pretence that we are involved. It’s really remarkable,when you think about it.It’s as if we don’t exist.
That single paragraph to me says this SNP government has failed the people of Scotland.
Well said Hatuey
Saffron Robe @ 11.28
“the SNP, under the current leadership, are simply not independently-minded.”
Too many perhaps still hold a ‘colonial mindset’, which is after all the purpose of cultural imperialism as far as oppressed peoples under colonial rule are concerned (Fanon 1967). Some maybe think Scottish independence is merely a question of political ideology when it is in fact a matter of national culture and hence determined by national identity and emotion, the basis of which is language, i.e. the Scots language.
“Language…. is the means by which humans can claim diversity and define their identity” (Shaw 2001). Without their own language a people will lose their identity, which is the aim of cultural and linguistic imperialism, and an aim the SNP Scottish Government has pursued by refusing to teach oor ain Scots langage tae Scots bairns in Scottis schuils.
Language imperialism is also the root cause of Scotland’s institutionalized inequalities through the marginalization of Scots speakers and the perpetuation of a higher status Anglophone elite (see Hechter 1998; ‘Elitist Scotland? report 2015; also census data).
These and various other aspects concerning the study of colonial oppression are covered in my textbook: ‘Doun-Hauden: The Socio-Political Determinants of Scottish Independence’.
No Deal is the best outcome regards Scottish Independence.
Scotland needs a good kick in the chuckies.
We have got to be the most lacklustre Nation in the world when it comes to fighting for Independence.
The majority are more concerned about what is happening in Coronation St than they are about Independence.
All those No Voting Unionists in Scotland who told us staying in the UK was the best route to go down in 2014 can own it.
All those fishermen who voted to leave the EU can own it.
All those farmers who had those huge Vote No banners in their fields, all those politicians who told us to vote No, all the media outlets who told us to Vote No.
Every single one of them can own the shit that is coming down the line.
So go ahead Boris, give us the worst No Deal you can come up with.
And as for Sturgeon not fighting Scotland’s corner and holding indyRef2, well you actually leave me speechless because of your utter incompetence.
Absolutely spot on Ronald Fraser.
Anyone know about this, reported on Source this morning (paywall in the way)?:
“A leaked internal SNP report has cast new doubts on evidence given by SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, to the Alex Salmond inquiry (Herald)”.
Apologies if already covered somewhere above.
Marie M @ 8.27
“It’s really remarkable,when you think about it.It’s as if we don’t exist.”
Not so remarkable when you consider that the objective of cultural and linguistic imperialism is primarily about obliterating a peoples’ culture and language and hence removing the (Scottish) identity of that people through replacing it with something else – i.e. a British identity.
“For culture is the first expression of a nation. In the colonial situation, culture, which is doubly deprived of the support of the nation and the state, falls away and dies. If culture is the expression of national consciousness….it is the national consciousness which is the most elaborate form of culture.” (Fanon 1967).
Culture/language is the any peoples’ key defining feature internationally and it is this which gives them their identity and hence their national consciousness. This also explains why the Yes/No divide in Scotland is for the most part a cultural/linguistic divide, much as it is in most instances of self-determination conflict between ‘peoples’.
“So perhaps the SNP’s seeming total obsession with transgender issues (because it’s done nothing whatsoever for the L, G, B or I of “LGBTI” since 2016) is just a sign of them trying to rescue something from the wreckage of their hollow promises.”
Bad as that sounds there is a reasonable argument for observing that the situation is actually far worse.
Politics has traditionally been a collective endeavour, whatever the issue. The SNP’s “obsession” is not limited to the SNP alone but has infected the entire body politic.
Perhaps the most succinct description can be found in this piece:
https://womansplaceuk.org/2020/12/13/lidia-falcon-women-erased-from-the-law-and-public-policy/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
“We are in a moment of great confusion and of great suffering. Because we don’t have a left that knows what it is to be on the left. Being on the left does not mean stating it, pure and simple. One has to be consistent with the statement of principle that one has made and act accordingly. Today, we are in the midst of a postmodern left. Postmodernism, which is a strategy of capitalism, has overwhelmed us for years.
Capitalism has mounted a perfect campaign for years to destroy Marxist principles, or at least discredit and delegitimise them. In order to prevent a materialist analysis of the conditions of society and promote a postmodern ideology that centres individualism… that liquid society that Zygmunt Bauman talked about.
The left, which has been defeated so many times since the fall of the Soviet Union, is divided, fragmented and looking for ways to subsist, some of them grotesque. So, the left has been acquiring all these strange postmodern theoretical constructs on gender, prostitution, pornography, and surrogacy. That left has to be rebuilt.”
An explicit statement recognising the widespread attack on the material, physical and biological understanding of the conditions of society and social existence of which this is but a part. An ideological shock and awe the objective of which is to divide and rule by atomising everyone into single stand alone individuals with no connecting bonds.
Think of E.M Forsters dystopian world in the short story “The Machine Stops.”
“Isn’t it quite amazing that the UK government didn’t even feel it was necessary to give Scotland some fig leaf of a token gesture role at the Brexit talks? Nothing.”
Hautey.
From what I’ve read the Scottish government hasn’t had a sitdown with a Tory government official regarding Brexit since June or July 2019. We just don’t matter anymore in their eyes, we know it, Sturgeon knows it, yet she’s done absolutely nothing about it on the indy front.
I agree with Mr Fraser’s comment at 8.35am, lets have a no deal, and see if it wakens Scots up, and it will put more pressure on Sturgeon to hold an indyref or she can get out of the way for someone who can.
Ronald Fraser
The thing is nobody is that incompetent. In the same way as Boris is portrayed as being a moronic clown, It’s all a Whitehall puppetry trick, a sideshow to deflect from what’s really happening. Sturgeon know’s exactly what she’s doing and it’s not striving for Independence. Incompetence will be her get out clause as she has no other route out of this in one piece.
Tom @ 9.13 am ,
Here’s the article from the Herald ,
“ Leaked SNP report ‘contradicts Peter Murrell’s evidence to Salmond inquiry “ ,
https://archive.vn/Pfavx
Hi MaggieC.
“Leaked SNP report ‘contradicts Peter Murrell’s evidence to Salmond inquiry“
Strange… I got a different url for that archived story.
https://archive.is/Pvgz9
Must investigate…
ALF BAIRD
The promotion of English or Globish is imperialist at core. It has divided the élites of India and Pakistan from their citizens and similarly in Africa and the Arabian Gulf region. It is promoted as the language of technology, science, higher learning at the expense of indigenous languages which, although perfectly capable of expressing sophisticated concepts, are relegated to the ‘folk’ level.
Global capitalism finds its expression through English medium sources. The UN and ironically the EU promote it by default.
The expression if you don’t use you’ll loose it applies. The SNP is anglophone in spirit. A new SNP would have to start thinking outside the British box. That will require an immense effort of dedicated political and intellectual will.
Republicofscotland says:
14 December, 2020 at 9:29 am
“I agree with Mr Fraser’s comment at 8.35am, lets have a no deal, and see if it wakens Scots up, and it will put more pressure on Sturgeon to hold an indyref or she can get out of the way for someone who can…”
IF Scotland is heading into a No Deal scenario, then please, for the love of God and all things holy, let us make it count for something. Let us turn it into an ultimatum, and mark a “No Deal’s” arrival with some kind of consequence and constitutional ramification… preferably declaring the 1707 Treaty of Union to be breached.
And if the SNP won’t do it, then we need an emergency legal initiative that does it.
Right now, Sturgeon is Scotland’s greatest liability. She is useless, and “Team Sturgeon” is rotten and inept. We should remove all faith we have in them. They are the contemptible midwives of Scotland’s unconstitutional subjugation.
Even my faith in Joanna Cherry is beginning to falter.
If the end of the European Transition Period doesn’t mark the end of the Union, then as far as I’m concerned, it will mark the end of the SNP.
Who will I vote for in 2021? Can’t honestly say, but I can tell you who I WON’T vote for.
The Tory branch office in Scotland doesn’t believe in democracy for Scots.
“DOUGLAS Ross’ Scottish Tories would refuse to fight an independence referendum run by Holyrood — even if a court said it was legal.”
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18942079.tories-boycott-holyrood-run-indyref2—-even-approved-court/
French president Macron backs Scots on independence.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bridgesforindy/status/1337912660487270401
Yes Hatuey , I’m reduced to bitter , hollow laughter at the slapstick incompetence / inadequacy of Nicky the Clown , Queen of the Pratfall and her troupe of cheery fraudsters . The alternative to that laughter is caustic rage and heartwrenching disappointment , I choose to laugh , and retain a faint glimmer of hope some conflagration will engulf the Big Top compel the circus to leave town
“Scotland needs a good kick in the chuckies.”
No, Scotland does not! It’s been getting kicked in the chuckies for centuries. It is the SNP leadership that needs kicking in the chuckies for dragging their feet over Independence, the very reason for the party’s existence.
The indy movement hasn’t lost its enthusiasm, it’s lost its outlet, the means of achieving Independence via those in political power in the SNP/Scottish Parliament/Government because those in power have increasingly isolated themselves from their own membership and from the pro-indy movement, not to mention the rest of the electorate. They have engineered their own little bubble, entered it and locked the door, and the Independence movement isn’t in there with them, it’s standing outside hammering on the door for all they’re worth, and nobody inside is listening.
Ronald Fraser @8.35am – You are absolutely spot on.
The problems are :
Scotland has no one who will report this honestly outside the blogosphere.
Scotland has lots and lots of collaborators who will actively lie for their yoon masters.
The lying house-jocks.
The utter failure of the SNP to dispute, in any way, yoon lies (the “vow” guy should be immediately sacked for this alone).
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY WE HAVE NO POLITICAL LEADER SHOWING US THE WAY OUT OF THIS MESS.
All of these can be changed with political will. So Nicola Sturgeon and the woowoo have got to go. Then the pieces might fall into place.
P.S. No one should let “better together” off the hook. They, all of them from house jocks through workplace liars and media yoon liars, own this Brexit disaster.
I doubt the present SNP leadership are capable of pointing this out.
Scotland needs a leader worthy of that title.
Astonished @ 10:33
“I doubt the present SNP leadership are capable of pointing this out.”
Too busy telling each other what a wonderful job they’re doing, whilst simultaneously doubling their efforts to conceal all evidence to the contrary.
The more I hear the more I realise we all need to stockpile essentials.
My local supermarket regularly has bare shelves of beers, wines, olive oil and toilet rolls. Maybe not a huge problem at this stage but undoubtedly an indication that supply difficulties exist now – and that’s before Brexit exit changes kick in.
And in England the wartime mentality is setting in. Not good, and not good for for us here in Scotland utterly betrayed by a ("Quizmaster" - Ed) SNP leadership.
Stocking up on food, been advised that there is no need to do this. This advice was on a BBC web page, so what action should be taken? Food prices will go up but if the UK farmers who export there food to EU have issues then the UK will be their only market. Surely their food produce will become cheaper. What I am trying to say is there is no leadership in Scotland to counter the effects of Brexit, we should of been gearing up our food production, its like having a plan B. What we have had is just words like Scotland will not be force out of the EU. People with money will be stocking up their shelves, our MPs and MSPs have the resources to eat well, many of their voters are going to suffer. SNP have failed the people of Scotland.
Well folks it appears we’re coming down to the wire. From reports it appears Westminster is giving way on fisheries and the real isxue of the ldvel plsying field js the crux kf the matter.
As we see from the article by o Toole above this is non negotiable for the EU. Either Johnson gives way or there will be no deal and the enuing chaos.
It also raises a large Spectre for Nicola. Given support for independence we are told is increasing and that Nicola is well ahead in the polls. What Next?
If indeed these people want independence, then they will have expectations that Nicola is going to do something and soon.
Her popularity may well yet be her undoing.
So far she has had to do nothing. We rapidly approach the stage where even the non political anoraks will have expectations on her to act.
The end game is in sight one way or another.
Fraud or clever tactician ? We shall soon see.
I may have mentioned it before, but the SNP leadership display such a profound lack of appreciation of the law and legal method, that it is no wonder they have been unable to prevent the radical right from re-casting the British constitution to mean Scotland’s bill of sale to England. If the sainted one actually understood how to support democracy, Westminster would not be able to ignore our legal rights. So here’s a look at “Constitutional Tipping Points: Civil Rights, Social Change, and Fact-Based Adjudication”, as it would not be rational to allow the diddies who run the SNP, to help Westminster destroy our legal identity and our futures.
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=faculty_scholarship
Rattling someone this close to the election have some effect, and the changes made lately is important.
But the temporary and meek changes overshadows one of the main points of representative democracy.
If the representative harm you or your loved ones you replace them!
This is pretty evident in all of “the rest of the world”, but in Scotland evidently few seem to realize it.
Promising to support untrustworthy candidates for crumbs is “give the dog a biscuit each time it bites to be good” logic. Don’t. It’s wrong and it puts (most normal) people in a bind come election time. And once in they will continue to harm you all for years.
A positive procedure is:
1) Find a candidate you want to support.
2) Make sure the candidate can stand.
3) Campaign for the candidate and for the cause.
It is a noticeable more healthy procedure.
And this is true for SNP candidates, for independence candidates, or whatever.
Some consideration must be given to the parties too, but the candidates themselves is of utmost importance.
For the list vote a independence party is imperative for those who seek independence.
I’m baffled by the tendency to wait to see if the troughers turn benign.
Breeks@10:09
Surely if there is a no deal then Scotland’s assets become even more crustal for the Tory utopia.
They will fight even harder.
There will be a deal and it will be a terrible deal compared to what we had.
The worst affected nation in all Europe will be Scotland, because that’s what
Boris and the English government have decided.
No democracy for Scotland at any cost.
Our fish will be sold by England for England to act as a concession to the EU.
Boris returns as England’s national hero.
A deal where no one gullible thought a deal could be done.
Knighthood for Boris and enormous wealth for the wealthy while millions more
hit the dole and live below the breadline.
Millions more kids needing nourishment from food banks.
I want to fight this insanity and need a leader to follow into battle.
This is no life for any sovereign nation and no future for our children.
We’ve gone from the promise of Devo Max
to the prospect of Devo Nowt
in 6 years of St Nicla.
Failure in deed.
But still ‘wheesht for Indy’ we need to wait until its really, really bad before we do anything about it.
Who on earth waits for their house to be pulled down, before doing something to prevent it. Who? And just how stupid is that.
Bob Mack,
I know this is such a petty point & I feel like I’m back at primary school saying it.
BUT
Any chance you can proof read your post before hitting submit?
You make good points & keep the threads flowing, but it’s getting tougher to read your messages with the increasing number of spelling mistakes/typing errors.
It is not only Scotland’s future these incompetents are threatening. What we do in Scotland to defend our legal identities, will have global ramifications. The fabric of international human rights law will be harmed if we fail to be effective in defending our sovereignty from expansionist English nationalism. So here’s a look at “Preventing Irreparable Harm – Provisional Measures in International Human Rights Adjudication”.
http://www.corteidh.or.cr/tablas/r23872.pdf
@Keith Fae Leith,
Sorry bud, but I awaiting a new I pad as this one has gone doo lally. It seems determined to correct me at every stage and refuses to magnify.
Ill hold off posting for the interim as I cant guzrantee ouput.
Scotland finds itself in a situation in which, elsewhere, revolution or coup d’état might well have been the response. The SNP seems blithely indifferent to the build up of frustration among the faithful. One might only conclude that the SNP is working in the interests of a third party.
Just for information for everyone , I’m seeing reports that G-mail is down in the U K if you are having problems with your e-mail .
https://downdetector.co.uk/status/gmail/
@MaggieC
G.mail working on iPad but not on PC here
The Guardian quoting EU reps on Brexit-
A deal could be done this week or nearer the
end of the year, if necessary?
Dear God. Just how much time and effort can the EU
give these English Clowns who do nothing but lie, dither
and U turn.
Tell Bojo straight that he is about to get hammered with tariffs
and his unemployment rate will be going thru the roof.
These coronavirus briefings are the most dumbed-down streams of crap imaginable. She labours every single point… it’s like that horrible radio show “just a minute” except nobody ever presses a buzzer and tells her to shut up.
But I have no idea what the official advice for Christmas means. You can visit people but you shouldn’t visit people? Maybe they’re suggesting we only visit friends and relatives that we don’t like? But we can only choose 3?
Probably an idea to keep a flame thrower handy on Christmas Day. Anybody visits me they can count on a warm reception…
Yes down to just 44% including don’t knows with Survation today
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1338442898803658754?s=20
@Hatuey (12.52) –
We agree!
😉
@breeks 10.09 am
A deal consisting of giving away Scotlands resources is even worse that a no-deal. And it seems with the present governments in England/Scotland this might happen.
And it would be yet another breach of the Treaty.
The Scottish government should have made it absolutely clear that a breach of the Treaty would dissolve the union. Even though it actually is self evident.
But if it wanted independence it could have done so at any time for years.
What part, ian, the flame thrower? lol
Sharny Dubs says:
14 December, 2020 at 12:14 pm
Breeks@10:09
Surely if there is a no deal then Scotland’s assets become even more crustal for the Tory utopia.
They will fight even harder.
Fight harder? I don’t feel like the Tories / Unionists are even trying right now. Why should they? The SNP under Sturgeon is giving them a free ride. Not just on their odious Brexit, but the dangerous precedent being set for Scotland’s unconstitutional subjugation. Opposition? There came none.
There is currently no potency in anything the SNP says or does, and the only people who believe otherwise are Nicola Sturgeon, Pete Wishart, and the wheesht for Indy brigade.
On current trajectory, the SNP will go into 2021 Elections widely perceived as damaged goods, and while there is close to zero chance of a Unionist revival, Sturgeon has so demoralised the whole YES movement that the low turnout we can expect in 2021 will make it look like Indy has been thrown into reverse.
Contrary to some opinions expressed, I don’t think YES or AUOB, or indeed bloggers and armchair generals have let the side down at all. The problem is nobody factored into the equation such weak and inept leadership from the SNP, which has been so dismal that it makes no difference if it’s corrupt or just useless.
The only urgency we have seen from the SNP is their haste in pouring scorn and letting the air out the tyres of any constructive developments on the Indy front.
My instincts are telling me that the SNP’s irrational conspiracy to smear Alex Salmond, and indeed their Wokist infestation, is just the tip of the ice berg. The SNP can’t possibly be this hopeless and inept without malicious intent and orchestration.
I fear it is a mistake for Scotland to be putting it’s trust in an SNP which is compromised by corruption, betrayal or ineptitude. That’s why my preferred option would be a Constitutional initiative to denounce Scotland’s unconstitutional subjugation, and declare the Treaty of Union breached and at an end, with the perfidious colonial aspirations of Westminster squarely to blame for it.
When I first started rambling on about Scotland’s sovereign constitution, I knew in my heart it was too radical for some folks, and if I’m honest, a bit all or nothing. As time has gone by however, I am now firmer in my conviction that this is the ONLY way to address Scottish Independence and bring an end to this Union.
The politicians have failed us, and unless and until we have politicians standing firm and resolute in defence of Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty, then our politicians will fail us again.
Scottish Independence means winning the battle for sovereignty. Everything else is window dressing. Even Scottish / UK democracy itself is just proving itself so readily corruptible, that it cannot be trusted to deliver us.
We need Scotland re-set to factory conditions, and that’s the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath which enshrined popular sovereignty upon the people, and utterly rejected the very principle of subjugation by England.
Michel Barnier warns MEPS of short no-deal Brexit period even if deal closed this year
https://www.cityam.com/michel-barnier-warns-meps-of-short-no-deal-brexit-period-even-if-deal-closed-this-year/
“Scotland needs a good kick in the chuckies.”
What a profoundly peculiar statement.
The holdup isn’t Scotland,
(nor is it the UK government.)
re. cultural cognition. This is a form of “motivated reasoning” that is well understood to undermine the interests of natural rights. So here’s a look at “Motivated reasoning & its cognates”. As there has to be some rational explanation to the rank stupidity shown by ‘our’ leader. Other than the crap legal advice she is taking.
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2013/5/15/motivated-reasoning-its-cognates.html
@Hatuey (1.15) –
Kin right.
This time of year I’ve got the flamethrower handy anyway, bug or no bug.
Is it time for “the Bleak Book: the wasted years” ?
No mention of independence on the Scottish governments Topics page.
Not even a mention in the Brexit topic of Scottish independence.
https://www.gov.scot/topics/
Dave Hansell at 9:28 am:
Very interesting comment Dave, especially when you say: “An ideological shock and awe the objective of which is to divide and rule by atomising everyone into single stand alone individuals with no connecting bonds.”
Is this not what governments have latched on to with their coronavirus restrictions which drastically restrict our social interactions and right to protest? To reduce us to individual units which are more easily manipulated and thereby destroy our commonality and communality and, ultimately, our unity? Perhaps even our humanity?
Also a very good comment by Xaracen at 10:17 am which I agree with. We do not make things better by first deliberately making them worse. If you take the argument that Brexit will jolt the Scottish people into action then you are essentially supporting corporal punishment – that inflicting pain will produce the required effect. We have had over 300 years of being subject to suffering and mistreatment. The SNP were elected to put a stop to that.
I have no doubt that in generations to come, Nicola Sturgeon’s name will become a curse word.
Breeks@13:23
Your preaching to the converted, I am of much the same opinion something, radicle needs to be done. Still feel that a no deal is just going to bring the whole shit show to a head either way.
As you say the ineptitude/ corruption whatever of the SNP is so blatant it can hardly be a mistake.
God how I fear for our country.
“IF Scotland is heading into a No Deal scenario, then please, for the love of God and all things holy, let us make it count for something. Let us turn it into an ultimatum, and mark a “No Deal’s” arrival with some kind of consequence and constitutional ramification… preferably declaring the 1707 Treaty of Union to be breached.”
Breeks.
Yes that is what I was thinking, it will have such dire consequences for Scotland as a whole that Sturgeon or whoever is in charge would need to take us to independence in whatever shape that took.
I also think a no deal would see the EU warm more to Scotland, for fishing rights alone, in whatever route it took to for us to leave this union.
A no deal should be the starting gun for next years Scottish elections to be doubled up as also a vote on independence any indy minded FM worth their salt could pull it off within the time scale, however Sturgeon is a liability on the indy front.
Breeks @ 1:23
And so say all of us my friend
Sick to back teeth with loads of people in the SNP just along for the ride , or in older slang Just working their Ticket and have no interest in changing anything and mention Independence and you would need to call a bloody Ambulance to revive them .
Again I doubt if anyone would disagree with you.
I never understood why Nicola was so hell bent on stopping Brexit, I never wanted her or anyone else to stop it,I want Independence for Scotland like most of us that’s why I voted SNP.
The English & Welsh people voted for Brexit and I wanted them to have it, we had no right to try to deny them what they voted for, but I went along with it believing it was all part of the masterplan.
Sadly when I look at that bus at the top of this page it sickens me to realise there was no masterplan,
just betrayal
All I can say to add to the many comments here, is I am over the moon with you all for the way in which very intelligent conversations have been aired and held without attacking each other,
That was important,
The second issue was just as important, you kept to subject that is the closest to our hearts, for the sake of Scotland, for independence, for a better way of life. To extract ourselves from governments that are harming us all here in Scotland, governments that do not listen to their people, and you did not get derailed into going of the topic, by those whom professionally wish subvert the conversations into minor talk,
I became aware awhile ago that every time we Scots talked about independence on our own Scottish sites, some-body would take the conversation of in a different direction, at first I thought it coincidence, but it has happened so many times over the last few years for it to be normal, it is above the average,
So I am happy to be here today.
Breeks @ 1.23
Yes, sovereignty is all that matters. Testing the existence of Scottish sovereignty, who holds it, and how it may be asserted are relatively straightforward questions that a Scottish court might answer. Sovereignty thus provides for certainty.
Conversely, the referendum road is crammed full of uncertainties, mystifications and constitutional ambushes, even by ‘our own side’, or what Sartre called “the tin-pot bourgeoisies that colonialism has already placed in the saddle”.
I agree with other commentators that Boris Johnson is using Scotland’s resources as a bargaining chip and we have no say whatsoever in the matter.
What we are feeling now must be similar to how the Jewish people and minorities felt in Germany when Hitler rose to power. The despair at being powerless to prevent it and knowledge of the certain tragedy to follow.
If there is to be any hope at all then it will be, as Breeks and others have said, a matter of our sovereignty. However at no point has Nicola Sturgeon ever exerted our sovereignty even although she was elected to do so. Remember that England have acted as colonial masters for almost the entire history of their nation, and perhaps Boris Johnson ignorantly and arrogantly thinks that Scotland is just another colony to be used and abused, stripped of its assets and her people silenced. Nicola Sturgeon has never once stood up for Scotland and disabused Boris Johnson of this notion and made it quite clear to him that the people of Scotland are sovereign and we were NEVER a conquered nation. Our land and our resources belong to us and it should be up to us who we choose to share them with.
So we come back to the same point that Stuart has highlighted over and over again. Nicola Sturgeon is the one who is blocking Scottish independence, no-one else.
At it’s most basic level of description, the British constitution can be described as a legal contract between Scotland and England. Which has been grossly abused by English Torydum. So here’s a look at “The Law of Society: Governance Through Contract”. As the law is meant to defend society, not cause harm to it (see Brexit).
http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1350&context=ijgls
“This paper focuses on contract law as a central field in contemporary regulatory practice. In recent years, “governance by contract” has emerged as the central concept in the context of privatization, domestic and transnational commercial relations, and law-and-development projects.
Meanwhile, as a result of the neo-formalist attack on contract law, “governance of contract” through contract adjudication, consumer protection law, and judicial intervention into private law relations has come under severe pressure.
Building on early historical critique of the formalist foundations of an allegedly private law of the market, the paper assesses the current justifications for contractual governance and posits that only an expanded legal realist perspective can adequately explain the complex nature of contractual agreements in contemporary practice.
The paper argues for an understanding of contracts as complex societal arrangements that visibilize and negotiate conflicting rationalities and interests.”
@ Contrary 8.20am thanks for your response to the declaration proposal , ordinarily I would agree with your proposal of sugar instead of vinegar, which I have employed on numerous occasions , even when as a shop steward I approached negotiation with a consultation rather than confrontation approach
But I think you would agree that NS and the wider SNP group have been unapproachable and dismissive in any attempts by anyone in or out of the party to alter their FIXED perspective of a sect 30 as the ONLY way to independence
I have used the example of the forensic examinations bill to highlight the fact that as far as NS and the wokeists were concerned it was a done deal no ifs or buts no turning back , the JL amendment would be defeated , THEN SC and others asked readers and posters to email their reps and inform them of their displeasure ,which many did and LO AND BEHOLD the JL amendment passed with a LARGE majority (& Sturgeon didn’t even have the decency to vote OR ABSTAIN)
Unfortunately due to voters NOT getting responses from their SNP reps we have no way of PROVING that the emails FORCED a change of plans , although I would like to assume they had , so if the emails did elicit a positive response was it because people asked nicely , or was it because they were THREATENING the SNP reps future votes and their salaries
I think we can all agree that Sturgeon and the wider SNP NEED our votes to survive and PROSPER , but again unfortunately they are not listening to respectful pleas so the sugar approach has failed ,that now means the vinegar approach has to be applied
.
Misty001,
Sometimes it makes you feel good to rant.
Whatever validity your words and observations may have had are nullified by the ignorant abuse you have directed at almost EVERY contributor at the Wings Over Scotland BTL site.
Misty, I will reverse your point: what have you done to help? Where is the evidence that you are any different from the people on here that you despise?
If I start calling you a turncoat baldy wee coward who fled overseas and has done fuck all for Scottish Independence, would you be offended? Yet that is the type of inflammatory abuse you post below-the-line in a deranged amateur effort to rouse people into following your new incarnation as Napoleon Mist-a-fart. Do these words offend or inspire you? Welcome to the mirror.,
Misty, what have you done to help? What use are you? You are an impotent non-voter who Goggleboxes the life of others and acts like a keyboard warrior in your underpants. You appear to be a 001 James McBond wannabe. Bin the tuxedo, the only sartorial worry are you the breadcrumbs and gravy down your simmet?
Fortunately your ignorant waffle is so wide of the mark as to be risible.
Stuart Campbell has always written well-researched and forensically sourced website articles with a style that brings him the oft declared 800,000 visitors a month.
Without any doubt this website, and for example the Wee Blue Book written by the Rev and funded by we feckless do-nothing plebs, all of whom you loathe HAS done something of moment. The Wee Blue Book managed to shift the YES vote at IndyRef1 from 41% to 45%
Misty, what have you done? Where is your blog? Where is your book? Out now in paperback: “The wisdom of Misty Le Merde”.
Recently the Sturgeonite McWokeist fifth column got their jotters/P45s and were evicted from the NEC. Sites such as Wings and the plethora of other TRUE INDY SITES with all those supporters you decry HAVE achieved a lot. Yet you apepar entitled. You fleck a shitstorm of abuse from your Palais de la Impuissance et la Lâche as if you dropped trou., and splattered wet MistyFart on anyone.within two metres of your gold plated rectum of oratory.
Misty, what have you done to help? What exactly did you do to get rid of the toxic McWokeists?
When you were tanning your Pledge-polished chrome-dome wee napper in the overseas sunshine, many of us have been on the front line. Several of us are able to get marginal SNP MSPs out of Holyrood. We don’t post that in the public domain ya frustration and rant filled wee Amadan.
There are some conversations with the likes of Alex Salmond or Kenny MacKasill that Rev Stu keeps OFF Of the public forum. Quite right too given your meltdown on here.
As for YOUR credentials?
Misty ye cannae even vote in Scotland
Your past posts come across as from a condescending no-mark who deigns to gift his divine presence in a BTL community of ACTIVISTS when (and I quote) your better instincts say you are wasting your incredibly valuable time on the plebs at this WoS site.
Away an bile yer head ya abusive skid-mark of a master baiting Troll.
Now that was a proper rant, and I do feel much better.
Do we definitely know that the SNP did not at least try to do a deal with May?
O/T
Fresh from one fight for women, here is another and it needs help with funding. One day to go and about £7,000 short of target. Court costs have gone up apparently because Equality Scotland (Scot. gov funded) have been allowed to intervene. So, hope you don’t mind:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-scottish-government-redefining-woman/
.
Betty Boop,
Thank you for such a refreshing BTL post.
Stu, PLEASE can you consider deploying your good offices to give this court case close to your heart and brain a nudge?
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-scottish-government-redefining-woman/
Betty, I am delighted to have put a modest contribution into the fundraiser. Mostly because it is an excellent way to legally STOP the Sturgeonite McWokeist Toxin from infecting our nation’s laws.
Also on a minor point, it proves to Scots Mist001 that this website and those who contribute don’t just give words. I am delighted to give a modest amount of money too.
Betty, at the time of your post, £7,000 was required to reach the £80,000. Now just £5,830 is needed to mount a legal challenge against Sturgeonite TransgendeWooWoo gerrymandering of our Scottish Government.
STOP THE SCOTTISH GOVERMENT REDEFINING WOMEN AS MEN.
.
Correction due to eyesight problems…
Stop the Scottish Government redefining “woman” to include men
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-scottish-government-redefining-woman/
RE:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-scottish-government-redefining-woman/
Crowdfunder extended for 30 days.
@ Betty Boop – donation made. Best wishes.
“Al-Stuart says:
14 December, 2020 at 5:36 pm
.
Misty001,”
As they say in East Anglia, as a cultural exclamation of satisfaction at an particular outcome, “proper jobbed”.