The Music That Nobody Likes
Perhaps the key graphic from last night’s by-election in Caerphilly is this one (green means Plaid Cymru in the context of Wales):
In the end, Plaid won pretty comfortably in what had been predicted to be a very tight contest between them and Reform, with a majority of almost 4,000. But Plaid aren’t going to be the next government of the UK, so what’s the real story?
Plaid’s supposed cause – Welsh independence – is barely even on the political radar in Wales. Support is currently sitting at just over 40% with Don’t Knows excluded, and that’s a one-off high. The average of the 10 polls before the most recent one, again excluding DKs, was just 34%. Only once, fleetingly during COVID, has the gap been closer than 10 points.
Plaid are even less fussed about it than the SNP are:
That vague half-interest in independence aside it’s also very hard to identify much in the way of significant policy differences between PC and Welsh Labour, just as it is between the SNP and Scottish Labour. But they do have one huge and vital thing in common with Reform – neither are tainted by power, and right now that’s pretty much all the British public is looking for in politicians.
We’ve been tracking the phenomenon for many years on Wings, but it’s accelerating faster than even we imagined. Labour won a landslide just over a year ago, but are now absolute electoral poison in every country of the UK. Wales, where they haven’t lost an election in literally over 100 years, was the last holdout and now Keir Starmer’s blown that too.
But the Tories are in no position to capitalise. The disastrous reigns of Theresa May and Boris Johnson left the party holed below the waterline, and then it sent in Liz Truss to repair the damage with a bucket full of hand grenades, from which there was no way back. Rishi Sunak stood on the deck while the ship sank, before sailing off with a shrug in his platinum personal lifeboat, and even the relatively competent Kemi Badenoch has no chance of hauling it back up from the ocean floor.
What that means is that we’re looking at a once-a-century pole shift in British politics. Not since Labour and the modern incarnation of the Conservative Party emerged as the main protagonists around 100 years ago after the disintegration of the Whigs has the fundamental nature of UK politics been meaningfully changed. But now both are spent and hollow forces and the essentially central ground they occupied has been vacated, and like Weimar Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, the extremes are racing in to take it over.
Even those of us who vividly remember the miners’ strike and (slightly less vividly) the three-day week and the Winter Of Discontent haven’t seen political foment like this. The explosive recoil of Reform bursting out of the Tories like the xenomorph out of John Hurt’s chest in Alien has been mirrored on the left – if anything the likes of Plaid and the Greens are MORE extreme and fundamentalist than Nigel Farage’s party.
As ever, George Orwell called it 80 years ago.
“The heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and have even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian.
The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realizable. Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years – imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation of whole populations–not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”
And thus in the name of “tolerance” and “diversity” and “inclusion”, the modern left is an utterly intolerant monolith of ideology in which the slightest glimmer of dissent from the orthodoxy of the moment is met with cancellation and expulsion, sometimes with the assistance of actual Thought Police.
(With crushing irony, Amnesty itself is now one of the worst proponents of “NO DEBATE” and censorship, having been entirely captured by extremists.)
And yet bewilderingly, politicians from the mainstream parties seem completely unable to read the room and insist on doubling down with wildly unpopular policies even their own supporters don’t want, partly through sheer hubristic arrogance and partly because they’ve become prisoners of tiny factions that they themselves elevated to power as an exercise in virtue-signalling.
With Labour it’s the Muslim vote, less than 6% of the population but without which it would lose its last redoubts in English cities, which prevents it tackling major current issues like immigration and the grooming-gangs scandal and leaves the door wide open for Reform to take advantage of public anger.
With the Lib Dems it’s the dependence on “progressive” corporate donors to keep the party functioning after its catastrophic collapse in the wake of the 2010-15 coalition with the Tories.
With the SNP it’s its own youth wing, which it allowed – particularly under the youth-obsessed Nicola Sturgeon – to completely dominate the party, driving out the old guard who were much more evenly spread across the left-right spectrum and who took most of the party’s competence with them when they left.
(The party is now such an inept shambles in government that the only thing keeping it in power is its failure to deliver independence. If it ever achieved its supposed goal, it’d be swept out of office immediately like Winston Churchill in 1945, which is why it no longer has any credible intention of doing so.)
And so all the mainstream parties are weighed down by their own histories, their own failures and the things they’ve had to do to win or retain power. Labour, the Lib Dems, the Tories and the SNP are all complicit and culpable in the current abysmal state of the country and the cost of living crisis, but instead of helping out struggling voters they’re all obsessively making their lives worse every day for the sake of pious (and futile) nanny-state posturing, whether it’s with Minimum Unit Pricing, congestion charges or banning free refills of hot chocolate and grown-up Coke.
(And only sheer ineptitude stopped the SNP/Green coalition from adding still further to everyone’s cost/admin burdens even with foul diet drinks via the Deposit Return Scheme.)
The appeal, then, of a party which promises basically to just leave you the hell alone and stop breaking things is obvious and measurably growing by the day. Yet the chances of any of the main parties learning lessons from Caerphilly are vanishingly slim, and clueless pundits are already trying to frantically spin it as Reform’s “bubble bursting”, which seems wildly optimistic given what actually happened.
Plaid won by a good margin, but they were starting from a very strong second place, which they’ve occupied since the seat came into existence 26 years ago. As with the Hamilton by-election in Scotland, Reform’s showing came from a standing start, and with very little in the way of presence in the country.
But the devolved parliaments are a sideshow to Reform anyway (they’d have no chance of governing in either Cardiff or Edinburgh even if they won next year’s elections, as they’d be shut out by the others). Their eyes are on the big prize, and it appears to be very firmly within their reach.
And the same thing that’s keeping the SNP in power in Scotland – the fragmentation of the opposition – will work in their favour in a UK election. Their ideological opposites are the Greens (who have only one MP fewer than Reform at present), but while both have roughly doubled their polling since the 2024 election, that still leaves the Greens miles short of the level of support needed to make a serious breakthrough under First Past The Post, and their policies under the absurdly, cartoonishly fatuous Zack Polanski are far too fringe to get them much past their current peak. There are only so many students in keffiyehs and NET ZERO TRANS QUEERS FOR PALESTINE AND ABOLISHING ALL PRIVATE PROPERTY banners in the country.
(They got just 1.5% of the vote in Caerphilly, below even the Tories, and in Scotland they’re not even waiting for Jeremy Corbyn’s new party to exist before they split off to it for reasons so arcane we can’t actually tell what they are.)
Glumly all we have to offer about this grim Weimar future are warning flags. We can see no prospect of avoiding it, because the old parties all appear hell-bent on losing, and the last 20 years have proved that things would be no better if they won anyway.
(“Whoop-de-doo, we’ve defeated the Reform menace! Another 10 years of Labour’s digital IDs, benefit crackdowns, endless hate crimes and Islamic blasphemy laws!”)
The fatal flaw that has always existed in First Past The Post (but was concealed when there were only two electable options) has reached the crisis point, and the UK seems doomed for years to come to be governed by parties opposed by around 75% of the population, until the void created by the implosions of Labour and the Tories resolves into a new “normal”.
So you can see why we’re thinking of going back to writing about old videogames and ice lollies. At least that’s less depressing.
If Reform get in, be interesting to see how quickly, Labour & The Tories (historically the beneficiaries of FPTP) start screaming about PR.
I was about to ask something along those lines, but if the legacy parties see the writing on the wall, wouldn’t the time to act be before they’ve lost the keys to Reform?
Politicians rarely think long term, it’s all about immediate power.
Starmer is on track to ensuring that Labour never ever get back into power. He’s so unbelievably detested and only got in because Reform split the Right vote.
Given the emergence of Reform and how the country is now very split across multiple political parties, PR makes more sense than ever.
Labour would be wise to start discussions on a bill proposing radical electoral change. And the Tories are not in any position to ignore it.
“Starmer is on track to ensuring that Labour never ever get back into power.”-mike
=======
People were saying the same about Callaghan in the 1970s. And Labour leaders before and after him.
Labour have a massive majority, and only 3 more years to use it. I can’t understand why they aren’t rushing to introduce an STV or similar Proportional Voting system – it is party policy, after all of
…it really is rather dismal out there now isn’t it….and not just with the current pouring rain…
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Hi Stuart,
You have hit the thirst for quality reporting with another excellent, forensic article. Thank you.
One problem, is this actual proper research work on numbers not what your 5talker, Gravy-Train-Kelly should be doing?
That midden-dwelling obsessive is still begging for money so he can “keep the lights on” in his clarty bedroom, with his promise to provide researched articles. Yet he posts pictures of himself going on holiday instead of providing quality content from HARD numbers and FACTS as appear in this article here on Wings Over Scotland.
With Gravy-Train-Kelly, and his recent “win” getting onto the SNP committee for weaving money policy, it appears he is driving along a clear pathway to becoming an MSP.
That is what we do NOT need… James Kelly to get a big regular MSP pay check on the SNP Gravy train at Holyrood.
Wales just showed what happens to political parties that do not listen to voters.
Kelly is not listening to his fundraisers who evidently do not want to send him much money.
Do you think wee Gravy-Train-Kelly would switch his site off and remove the Youtube of his midden state bedroom if I donated £1,000 for him to PLEASE just go away… Jimmy Kelly should get a proper job as a school janitor and stop annoying folk.
the one absolute truth in politics is that :
you can ALWAYS MAKE THINGS WORSE
– revealing interview for cunty macfuck in bloomberg
link to archive.ph
full of tasty morsels – the CofE is a state and he was going to go catholic, thatcher was great, the glorious revolution was great, deregulate everything
and he is laying it all out for you. It is pretty honest.
note the use of green text which is “fact checked”
Also note the british public don’t read bloomberg, its the mail or telegraph or sun
I’d like to put on record my thanks to all of the fuckwits who voted “No” in 2014, and will have left Scotland saddled with this knob-end as prime minister. [If and when the English vote for the Fish face Party].
“nigel has only got one ball … ”
1/3 of the way down, legit.
the hitler analogies write themselves
poundshop mosley
powell with his brains kicked out
Seconded James.
I voted yes, however I would vote no now as all the last 10 years have shown is that our own scottish politicians are even worse that the halfwits in WM.
If this knob-end does get the keys to number 10,
Then those fuckwits who voted no in 2014 deserve all that’s coming to them in spades. Sadly those who voted yes will have to suffer because of them.
“they’re all obsessively making their lives worse every day for the sake of pious (and futile) nanny-state posturing, whether it’s with Minimum Unit Pricing, congestion charges or banning free refills of hot chocolate or grown-up Coke.”
I think you are wrong about MUP, Stu. There is some research on it.
link to thelancet.com
“Findings
MUP in Scotland was associated with a significant 13·4% reduction (95% CI –18·4 to –8·3; p=0·0004) in deaths wholly attributable to alcohol consumption. Hospitalisations wholly attributable to alcohol consumption decreased by 4·1% (–8·3 to 0·3; p=0·064). Effects were driven by significant improvements in chronic outcomes, particularly alcoholic liver disease. Furthermore, MUP legislation was associated with a reduction in deaths and hospitalisations wholly attributable to alcohol consumption in the four most socioeconomically deprived deciles in Scotland.”
Maybe, sam, but most normal people couldn’t give a fuck.
You, and people that think like you, like to impose collective punishment on everybody, in this case just because a tiny minority can’t control their drinking habits.
You’re like the incompetent school teacher who punishes the entire class because she can’t work out how to keep a trouble maker in check.
Nanny state posturing is so much of the reality of our faux politicians. It’s virtue signalling to mask reality and justify that our politicos in our faux system do anything.
Take MUP. As a policy it will have had some but in reality very little effect in reducing alcohol consumption harm. Our country, like many others is steeped in alcohol. Ill health, be it liver deaths,increased cancers, heart disease and all the disrupred personal and societal problems are still with us big time. MUP has not impacted this but merely tinkered at the margins.
Too much money involved by big money interests in producing alcohol in industrial quantities. Ergo a virtue signalling MUP that tinkers at the edges, delivering marginal results whilst the damage rampages on.
Indeed, as concommitant comment the incrrase in price that MUP imposes is passed on to the manufacturer. Few know that.
Moreover folks might like to ask why products like no alcohol beers typically cost more than alcoholic beers. This is strange since a substantial portion of the price of a typical strength beer of circa 4.5% abv has around £0.49 excise duty and VAT in the price.
So why is the zero alcohol typically more expensive. Surely no negative MUP or other action by our charade charlatan Scottish Government to address this. MUP was supposed to price alcohol demand down and here we are with non alcoholic beers, being more expensive.
Bought and sold for corporate gold one may opine as the virtue signalling continues. Sturgeon for all she declared was part of the charade and the faux politicos continue that charade today.
And these comments are only about the sham that is the largely innefective MUP alcohol and overall alcohol harm reduction policy.
But that is only one policy area. Power, affordable pricing policy, where are we with that. Supporting Scotyish jobs too. Where are we with that when most of the kit for our renewable power extrataction is sourced abroad by the blood sucking corporates. Windfarm jackets from UAE and China being but one example. And in this let us call out as an example Sea Green off Fife where over 100 turbines had their huge tower leg structures fabricated in Dubai and China Billions and billions of work that could have, and should have been done here.
But I digress. The electorate wouldn’t have it any other way.
Willie,
If you are interested I have provided a link below to an evaluation of MUP. Here are some bits of it.
There are other studies which find a positive effect in MUP reducing the harms of alcohol particularly among the least well off.
link to ahauk.org
“So, did MUP achieve it’s aims?
The conclusion of the Public Health Scotland report is mostly yes. Deaths wholly due to alcohol, mainly from liver disease, fell by 10% in 2019, the first full year of MUP, and Scotland experienced less of an increase in alcohol deaths than other countries during the COVID 19 pandemic leading Public Health Scotland to conclude that Scotland’s direct alcohol death numbers were reduced by over 150 per year by MUP.
In 21/22 Alcohol related hospital admissions showed the lowest rate for 25 years in Scotland. The COVID pandemic will have had an impact on the use of beds, but between the introduction of MUP and the start of the pandemic , Glasgow, the largest and most deprived city in Scotland, had the lowest rate of admissions for liver disease in 20 years.
The fall in deaths and hospital admissions was greatest among men and people on low incomes making MUP an important lever for tackling inequalities. The decline in alcohol sales was in off sales where the sales reduction was greatest in cider and perry at 20% and in spirits, so MUP affected the categories of alcohol favoured by the heaviest consumers as the policy intended. Analysis of market research data showed the same pattern. The hard numbers show that MUP worked as predicted by the modelling researchers, and as the clinicians had hoped for.”
Thanks for the link Sam. I shall read it with interest. Maybe MUP has achieved more than I thought. But, for me, and I suspect many others, it is not enough.
And that said, my wider point is that so much of what is done is not enough. Indeed, much is faux policy supporting what the policy line given out is.
Energy pricing is for me a stereotypical case. For a country steeped in anmabundance of power, first oil and gas, and now wind and increasec hydro storage, the corporates clean up whilst the natives gain nothing. And the SNP big talk about Scottish Energy Company is just that
, big talk.
Yes we are blessed we are told but where is the state power company, where is the affordable power, where is the inclining block pricing tariffs, and why are the corporates being allowed to further profiteer by securing the jackets et al from foreign countries denying Scotland billions of pounds worth of work and jobs. And community benefits from windfarms stuck on folks doorsteps. Our community, local authority supported generation. At least with oil and gas we built the rigs. Now we send them to Norway for dismantling.
Of course the ferries debacle was of the right sentiment. State owned Calmac purchasing its ferries from a Scottish shipyard. But why did it go so astronomically wrong. And despite it going wrong is that now justification that that’s it for procuring Scottish ferries in Scottish yards. Maybe we dont deserve the jobs, the economic boost. But whatever the granularity, is that it. Or is it our pretend parliament, with its limited devolved powers from Big Brother, and its two bitvcompromised second rate troughing politicos is simply in the masters pocket.
Norway or Dubai or Abu Dhabi or Qatar are all small population nations who didn’t end up like Scotland. So whats the difference. Colonialised Scotland perchance.
The very thing that the rather perceptive Mr Baird rails on about.continually rails about.
But I digress. Scotland is in the grip of a colonising corporate monster. And if anyone thinks its bad just now, then just wait till the digital ID and full AI of surveillance is fully in place.
A Third Reich but this time for a thousand years.
Statistical correlation does not demonstrate cause and effect.
At least there’s still the Unions to rely on for calling out inequity and not being unctuous at all. Such a breath of fresh air.
link to x.com
Reform will not achieve their voters’ expectations. England is heading into dangerous territory. Having said that, if I were English in England I’d vote Reform in the next election.
England’s troubles will be Scotland’s next chance to gain independence; but, rather than exploit this opportunity, the SNP will pick a side and join in. The SNP are more comfortable viewing events through a UK lens.
I’ve already seen Alyn Smith, in a response to Reform, claim that Scotland needs more immigrants. I would have expected a nationalist to point out that Scotland needs more Scots. That Scotland needs to be more Scottish. He could have explained how Scotland’s society and economy is affected by different strands of economic migration. He could have given us a nuanced response. Instead, Alyn Smith shouted, “The bogeyman is coming!”
Our political managers have only one certainty – that they are superior to the voters. Look in Alyn Smith’s eyes and you’ll see a certifiable idiot looking back at you.
Scotland’s future will be held in this gaze until we have politicians willing to break the trance.
“I’ve already seen Alyn Smith, in a response to Reform, claim that Scotland needs more immigrants. I would have expected a nationalist to point out that Scotland needs more Scots.”
Yes, if only the co-opted by colonialism SNP elite were nationalists, and behaved like nationalists! They don’t appear to understand that independence is a ‘cultural emotion’ based on ‘identity’ and ‘national consciousness’ (Fanon), dependent on ‘the solidarity of the oppressed ethnic group’ (Hechter), Scots in oor case.
Population displacement, i.e. making an indigenous people a minority in their own land, is a well-proven colonial tool, as we see in Wales, in New Caledonia, in Scotland and many other countries down the ages.
Where an indigenous population and hence national consciousness, national culture and national identity is made to fall below 50%, independence becomes more difficult. Co-opted Smyth, Swinney et al are either ignorant of this fact, are working for the other side, or both.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
I almost wrote about the wretched of Scotland in my comment.
I did point out to people a few years ago that, in Fanon’s take on capital and decolonisation, Sturgeon had forgotten the independence bit. Every other step was there, though. The UK and the SNP agreeing to only recognise the SNP. Sturgeon’s hounding of Salmond and other nationalists…
I’d say it still goes on in the SNP. The leaders see themselves as pan-nationalist while not having bothered to achieve national status. Their call for ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ values Scottish culture in much the same way as the UK does. Everyone else’s is better.
Why is it so difficult for a nationalist politician to point out that the sale of a house in Surrey can trap a Scottish village in feudalism? Denmark and Holland have laws to stop Germans overrunning the place. Why is it so difficult to point out that importing cheap labour stagnates wages and the native population cannot afford to buy that village house?
Without doubt the idiot electorate of England are capable of putting Farage in No 10 where he can close the NHS, stop the Barnett formula, stop workers rights while stopping all benefits.
Initially I thought this would be grate as the brain dead Scottish Unionists might have a one off brain wave as see why we need to kick Westminster into touch forever.
The plan won’t work as Farage will simply change the laws to Ensure Scotland becomes a shire of North England that can be abused in any way he chooses.
Emperor Farage making England’s Empire great again with a little help from Mr Orange in the USA.
Indeed…
Why the hell would anyone want to vote for the @rsehole(s) that brought us Brexit?
What a roaring out of the park success that’s been, and the biggest event which, when combined with a decade of Sturgeon’s rancid SNP, has probably killed Scottish Independence for generations if not for good.
F**k Sturgeon/SNP and f**k Farage/Reform! Two cheeks of the same incompetent arse.
It’s 2025, who still thinks the answer to any of our problems is to give more money and more power to Ursula von der Leyen and other unelected globocrats?
The most useful thing about Brexit is identifying people who’ve been in a coma since 2016. When they wake up for a minute and spit “gahhh, Brexit” apropos of nothing and with no apparent understanding of the struggle between government and the people, you know it’s time for their bed bath.
Effigy,
Yes, those who believe that Nigel Farage is the Messiah, will undoubtedly be disappointed.
The realisation that Broken Britain won’t be repaired by Nigel and chums as promised, will only result in the inevitable blame game and accusations of those who do not possess any Morris Dancing DNA, as the corruptors of everything that the green and pleasant land stood for, and the very fabric of the universe itself.
Those that believe Reform will change things for the better for Joe and Josephine Soap should prepare themselves for despondency.
Any kind words for the Scots who believe Craig Murray is the Messiah?
That’s actually an interestingly layered question, given the religion/race of the first Messiah.
On the subject of things not getting any better, any kind words for those Indy enthusiasts who post on here claiming that in the first few years of Indy, OF COURSE, everything in Scotland will be worse?
Kinda like in the UK after Brexit, duh.
Off Topic.
Bit depressing to read that Police Scotland are now investigating “discrepancies” in Alba’s finances.
Sven,
If it’s a £600,000 camper van discrepancy, I’m sure Police Scotland will let it slide.
Breastplate @ 16.34.
I so wish you were just jesting, BP. Unfortunately I fear that with an SNP devolved administration in power and the Lord Advocate sitting in the cabinet there seems to be a political party in Scotland who really do have a, “Get out of jail free card”.
I think Alba high heidyins reported it, and I think it was mis-use of a credit card. I could be wrong.
Chris McEleny’s photo is on the article and Dave Llewellyn on twitter has criticised CM’s use of an Alba Party credit card.
A good read, as always.
Whilst things are all over the place, so to speak, on the political front they are predictable due to the political class being easily bought people of little discernible talent.
You write: “like Weimar Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, the extremes are racing in to take it over”.
I’ve said this before (but to no effect!) You are assuming that there is a static “centre”, with left and right shooting off in each direction. I don’t think this is true. For the right, yes: openly racist, and what was only said by the nutters is now mainstream. (And Europe militarising, and Germany back in the game.) But the Labour party has also shot off to the right. If you’ve stood still you are now an extreme left winger.
That’s if you think we should keep the NHS, have access to a dentist, or water should not be privatised, etc. etc.. Like you say, Labour looks at the way things are and seems to think it’s OK. More of the same but with more flags.
Someone made the comment the last time I wrote this, along the lines that left/right politics seems to have turned into a matter of “causes”, rather than the basics of making lives better. I think that’s true. We should be able to disagree about gender, or what to do about climate change, and still be at home in a left wing party.
So, can we hang on, watch as the gender stuff goes away and sanity returns? But would you really vote Reform? For the single policy? They are clear on gender, but what about all the crazy shit they’ll bring.
Aye, it’s weird how racist people get when you try to replace them, with tribesmen from the foothills of Afghanistan.
Because that’s exactly what’s happening isn’t it. All these people who’ve been replaced. It’s enough to make you a racist.
It certainly is.
It’s just as weird how racist people get when the story coming third in the news is about a blameless young women who was stabbed to death by an illegal migrant armed with a screwdriver.
That’s on a day when the top story is about an illegal migrant on the run after sexually assaulting a young girl.
The boy only arrived here at the end of June but at the time he was mistakenly let go, he had already been found guilty of 5 criminal offences.
How weird that people are exercised about trivialities like these!
AndrewR,
You are correct. There is only a facade of choice, I posted on here a number of years ago, that Labour then, was more left wing than Thatcher’s government.
There’s a reason that Thatcher claimed her biggest achievement was New Labour, from then onwards it was only a race to the right.
Every decision made and to be made will have a bias to the right, ensuring a more authoritarian future.
Whether people are left leaning or right leaning, there needs to be balance in politics, there needs to be a left leaning party and a right leaning party to help counter lurches to either extreme.
We haven’t had a left leaning party in government since before Thatcher.
Jeremy Corbyn threatened to pull New Labour back to the left so he had to be stopped, hence, he was stabbed in the back by his own right wing party and smeared as antisemitic, which seems, these days, to be worse than being a paedophile.
Anyway, we should leave Westminster to lie in its own shit and pish and vote for a party that genuinely wants independence, then and only then, can we sort our own problems.
The treatment of Corbyn was shocking. The Farage supporters here should take note. Corbyn’s take on independence was that it was a matter for the Scottish people. Starmer’s is “I will never allow Scotland to separate from the UK.”
This kind of denialism/rewriting of history around Corbyn has to be taken on. The reason Corbyn failed is that he had no leadership or executive management skills. The brexit referendum was one of the most consequential democratic decisions of our lifetime, yet the Labour Party under his watch stood at the sidelines. That got even worse after the referendum, when the party wrapped itself in knots trying to even come to the skeleton of a position or mount any effective challenge to a Tory government that was increasingly falling into disarray and civil war. He promoted wholly unsuitable people into key positions both in the Labour Party, and also promoted entryism into local parties which precipitated a series of deselection attempts at critical moments when MP’s should have been campaigning. His communication style was to be irritable and combative when asked about key topics like Brexit and endlessly harp on about side issues like the railways. The 2019 manifesto was a joke, it was essentially “£2bn for every cause trending on social media”. The idea that a small group of people not all being 100% loyal to him as he ruined the Labour Party as a cause of his downfall is nonsense.
Aidan, I don’t think that is true. Corbyn competently organised a cross party opposition to Theresa May’s total exit. Including the conservatives who were later expelled from their party by Johnson. The Liberals scuppered this, thinking they could replace the Conservatives. That said, the policy the Labour party ended up with was a mess, the rerunning of the vote.
The right of the Labour party preferred a Conservative government to one run by Corbyn, worked every day to get it, and are now continuing Conservative policies and especially Austerity. Corbyn’s manifesto aimed at solutions to existing problems:water, energy bills, care of elderly, statutory duties of local councils, organisation of education. Real matters. Present Labour does nothing, and it is actively fucking up the NHS. So I think you are reheating the right-wingers’ propaganda and not looking at what he actually said. A nasty business, but very successful. They won, but are now collapsing.
What do you mean by “ Corbyn competently organised a cross party opposition to Theresa May’s total exit”. Corbyn didn’t organise anything, the fractious summer of 2019 was marked by the fact that there was no competent organisation within parliament meaning there was no majority in favour of any potential route forward. The fact that the Labour Party and the Tory rebels were essentially leaderless scuppered any possibility of a closer relationship with the EU, certainly compared to the deal that Boris Johnson negotiated. I don’t know what you could possibly mean by the term “total exit”. May was proposing no such thing.
It’s nonsense to say that the right of the Labour Party preferred a Tory govt. What they did do is try to protect some of the more competent MP’s recognising that Corbyn was driving the party to a landslide defeat, so that there would be some good people left to start the difficult task of rebuilding. They also tried to rid the party of Corbyn through a vote of no confidence but he refused to go in an act of unbelievable hubris and arrogance.
Again, I disagree. The right wing of the Labour party and the officers used nasty tactics to undermine their own leadership. The McSweeney faction saw the biggest danger as a Corbyn win, and worked to undermine him. With secret large funding.
Corbyn was elected by the membership, who were reacting to the sinking party under Blair, Brown, and Milliband. Corbyn turned the party round. You say he should have resigned? That’s complete rubbish. It goes to what the party is, who is it for.
Theresa May went for a complete Brexit, rather than a compromise like the Norway setup. And Corbyn did chair the coalition against this, I don’t know why you say he didn’t. Anyway, it’s a long time ago, the Blairites got him out, they are good at that sort of thing. And now we have a landslide victory on a tiny vote and a collapsing party.
I don’t know what you were doing in 2019, but Corbyn and his Labour Party voted against any version of a softer Norway-style Brexit which meant May resigned and Johnson came in! If Corbyn had shown some leadership for a Norway style Brexit then that would have passed in parliament, the numbers in parliament were there.
I’m not sure what we’re talking about now. My memory is that Norway was an obvious compromise, with about 50-50 vote, but it couldn’t get off the ground. The leavers wouldn’t take it as still being in the EU (and they’d won, suck it up losers) but the remainers also wouldn’t take it as being a worse deal than being a full membership. So, the plan of a second referendum. Starmer’s plan – so either his honest opinion (does he have any?) or a cunning plan to fuck up Corbyn. Who knows?
Aiden is simply wrong here. There was an amendment for a Norway style Brexit put forward by Corbyn and 99% of Labour voted for it, and a few Tories too. I was virtually praying for it to be passed but it lost by about 2 votes. Why? Because the entire SNP abstained and I think the LDs too and of course most Tories voted it down. I was disgusted at the SNP and LDs – they are responsible for the hard Brexit due to their ludicrous hubris about ‘demanding’ no Brexit at all. I know this because I followed things down here in England closely so please can we stop this nonsense about ‘Corbyn and his Labour Party voted against any version of a softer Norway-style Brexit’ – it is untrue.
Aye, that’s why it’s called replacement immigration.
Enjoy not being racist while they enjoy setting up more grooming gangs to prey on Scottish children while you turn a blind eye
AndrewR if you are saying that reform are clear about gender I’m afraid you are mistaken ,they have recently appointed a female who is of the same opinion as the Scum Nonce Party and other parties who promote the deviance and perversion of FAKE women
Also anyone who thinks they are at war with immigration do a bit of research and you will find out they are severely back pedaling on their promises ,they have been got at by the corporates which they are part of
That’s an eye-opener – away from Farage they are a strange bunch. But he has managed to reframe politics and make immigration into the single most important issue in our lives (as seen in the comments here) – rather than, say, giving away the NHS and why you can’t get a dentist. More single-issue politics, but this time from the right.
So good I read it twice.
From John O’ Groats to Lands End..
‘The hills are alive with the sound of music’.
I actually think you’re wrong about the Weimar-ization. That is the impression the plebs are supposed to get. They are supposed to get the impression BIG CHANGES are afoot and that ideology has made a roaring comeback. Actually, there is little difference between Labour and Reform. They are both neoliberal and Zionist to the hilt. They both make noises about immigration and civil liberties, but will do whatever Whitehall and the corporate lobby, the Americans, and Israel, tells them to do. That is why Reform ousted Lowe. As in Russia, we now live in a managed democracy, and managing a FPTP democracy is trivial. You make sure the opposition is controlled, and use vote splitting tactics (the “I agree with Zack” propaganda). Yes, Reform will plane off the worst excesses of “woke,” but in truth, that was already starting under Starmer, and it will not go very under Farage.
and like Weimar Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, the extremes are racing in to take it over.
What could be more extreme than using public money to set up Afghan colonies in rural Scotland?
What could be more extreme than imprisoning the native born for tweets while judges habitually let violent illegal migrants loose in our society?
What could be more extreme than deliberately turning a wealthy, successful country into a poor, failed country through manipulation of energy prices to benefit the already rich?
What could be more extreme than using the NHS as a means of turning children into sterlised transgenders and bumping off your elderly relatives?
People are not turning away from moderates to extremists, they’re turning away from a political “mainstream” that has been captured by nihilistic and antisocial ideologies that are bringing our country to the brink of social collapse. We literally can’t live like this.
You’ll mebbies get a job up the Zyklon B factory.
You must be the brains of the outfit.
Red….
Two words that will never go together….James and brains !!
FROM BBC WEB.
«Aided by opinion polling showing Labour on the slide and Reform on the rise, Plaid Cymru was able to frame the by-election as a straight choice between itself and Nigel Farage’s party.
Plaid’s challenge has long been to break out of its traditional Welsh-speaking heartlands in north and west Wales.
Parking the potentially divisive issue of independence for Wales, front and centre under previous leader Adam Price, has been part of the solution.
Ap Iorwerth is downplaying independence for now, promising to publish a plan for it – but not within the first term of a Plaid-led government»
Another case of a not a nationalist party……how pathetic.
Also…Why do politicians look so jaded, crumpled and OLD?
Why should people my age, 22, vote for them? (rhetorical question)
Nobody should vote for them, they don’t work for us. They work for strange agendas they’d rather you didn’t think about.
Red…Seems you’ve slept through the best bits of Brexit yourself and woken up during the shit show. Don’t take my word for it…
link to independent.co.uk
@ Rob at 9.22 “I would vote no now as our Scottish politicians are even worse..”
Rob, when we are independent we can restore the Scottish system of direct democracy i.e. where the politicians are subject to being removed immediately when they are at fault in various ways.
Please don’t withdraw your support from the cause of leaving the Union. Once we have achieved that we can surely make our own system better?
I have asked this question several times on here because I simply cannot see the point of a referendum at this current time, and never had a straight answer.
Do any of the absolutely 100% Scottish independence supporters here genuinely and seriously think another referendum at the moment would result in a yes vote?
@ Rob “…genuinely… think another referendum at the moment would result in a Yes vote?”
Of course I do, and it would. Last time, when it was effectively a brand new concept and everything was stacked against Yes, we almost won. Look at the effect of the Wee Blue Book within a few weeks, as Stu has demonstrated graphically several times.
Now the idea of independence is mainstream, the support is consistently around 50% in the polls. All it takes is for there to be a target date and then mass activity will begin, and for major figures such as Wings to publicise and act.
Did Stu really think in 2014 that his work would have such an impact? I doubt it. Yet it did.
We need all hands to try to make May 2026 an independence vote or at least to demonstrate support for independence. Peter A Bell’s Manifesto for Independence is a start on the former, yet no party or major voice has taken it up.
We can demonstrate support for independence by voting for candidates who are real fighters for independence. And DON’T vote for the same party on both ballots i.e. D’Hondt = Don’t.
There you go, Rob. One. Sarah.
Politics is like nature, it abhors a vacuum.
If there was genuine desire for Indy in Scotland, the political movement to make it happen would long since have manifested itself.
Outside of this echo chamber, we can see political movements springing up in response to the unmet demands and expectations of voters, all over Europe, and even elsewhere in the UK. Reform, the revitalised Greens, and the pro-ham asshole party.
But in Scotland, for Indy, nada.
Go figure.
“Do any of the absolutely 100% Scottish independence supporters here genuinely and seriously think another referendum at the moment would result in a yes vote?”
Independence is more likely if we use a national franchise, not the current local government franchise as set out in the Scotland Act, which effectively makes the Scottish Gov a local or regional gov, i.e. not national.
What would also help is if there was UN sanctioned ‘secondary criteria’ for voting qualification as used in New Caledonia, e.g. where people from other countries would have to have stayed here a minimum period of time, this is their primary place of residence, and their main economic interest is in Scotland etc etc.
Rob, this is deja vu.
Yes, you’ve asked the question before, and yes, your question was answered, and yes, you ignored the answer, and yes, you will ask it again.
But for the umpteenth time, having a referendum is democratic, not having a referendum is undemocratic.
I understand that being a Unionist often comes with intellectual deficiencies but FFS, how many times does it need explained that a referendum is as precise a measurement of The Will of the People as you can get, not a fucking MORI poll funded by Whiskas to see if their cat prefers independence.
Again Rob, this has been going on for years.
I thought initially, you were pretending to be a simpleton just to be annoying but I don’t think that any more.
You’ve got Implants exercised, Rob. Check out the immediate recourse to personal insult in his response.
So what if you’ve asked the question umpteen times. It has to be significant he can’t even answer it once.
No political party is campaigning towards organising a referendum as part of their May 2026 Hollyrood manifesto for bleeding obvious reasons. If the support was there they could be doing it right now. They could be crowdfunding the operation. So what if WM says no? What are they gonna do? Arrest every Scot in Scotland?
Even Rev Stu has said on numerous occasions that the prospects for Indy are dead at least until the 2030’s. Yet the usual suspects, if they ever read that at all, just plough on insisting the desire for Indy is what is getting every Scot out of bed in the morning.
The only thing stopping around 100 pro-Indy Scots standing for HR election in May 2026 on a plebiscite for Indy manifesto promise is the clear calculation that hardly any Scot will vote for them.
It really is as simple as that. And even on here, you have one response, from sarah, who believes we Scots would vote Yes if we were asked next week.
One.
The only thing stopping us from beginning that process now is the lack of will to do so.
Pretty much everyone can see the current UK political system is captured by an effective uni-party of grifting careerist politicians and some civil service agencies pushing unmandated agendas that are not adequately representing their constituents.
And that’s to be expected with any individual only passing vetting to be selected as a Party candidate if they accept their Party line over that of the electorates that vote them into positions of power.
The game’s a bogey until folk wake up and choose a different path.
Think global but act local is what is required, but far too many supposed politically smart folk still seem unable to comprehend getting behind any new type of initiatives such as the I4I concept, and thus these potential seeds of real change remain stunted due to lack of light being shone on them.
The constant focus on the destructive adversarial negatives, and never the consensus building positives fixes nothing (as can so clearly be witnessed in btl “commentary”), and just facilitates the ongoing slide of a failing state.
A little self-awareness would go a long way and maybe if folk that spend ridiculously unproductive amounts of their lives in wee bubbles on the internet actually weened themselves off what is a clear addiction, and instead put some real effort into their local areas, then things may begin to be different.
link to music.youtube.com
You talk of the “essentially central ground” occupied by Labour and the Conservatives. I notice that they have presided over an increase in house prices from three times average earnings to six times average earnings. They have crushed the dreams of young people of leaving their parents homes and getting a place of their own to start a family. This is as wild and radical as it gets.
I’ve lost for words to describe this, certainly not left or right. Ana or kata? Chaotic evil?
As Ronald Reagan said,
the nine most dangerous words in the English language are,
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help”.
THE PLAID CYMRU LEADER in today’s GUARDIAN
«There are lessons here for every progressive (sic) movement in the UK. You don’t defeat extremism by copying its language or trimming your values to fit a poll. You defeat it by standing for something real. When Reform tried to weaponise Welsh programmes that help refugees to integrate, making Ukrainians feel unwelcome, we stood up to them. We defended what is right and stayed true to our values.
We are focusing on policies that will transform people’s lives, not just tinker at the edges. Our free childcare plan is worth more than £30,000 in childcare costs in the first four years of a child’s life – the most ambitious in the UK. Our manifesto will be grounded in a recognition that too many in our communities have been left behind. We are determined to change that. Like Scotland, we will take real action to tackle child poverty through a new child payment. This is what bold, practical politics looks like – politics with purpose, ambition and heart.
When voters see authenticity, they respond»
As in the not the ScotNat party, the NSNP, authenticity is keeping independence from jumping on the platform.
BritState may continue to rest easy in its dotage.
FROM THE NATIONAL, today
«The First Minister has backed the Scotland Demands Better rally taking place in Edinburgh on Saturday, saying he is pleased to see people marching “for a better, fairer Scotland”.
Thousands of people are expected to attend the demonstration, with the demonstration beginning at 10am outside the Scottish Parliament.
Anti-poverty rally hailed as ‘one of the most important stands of this decade’
The campaign, led by the Poverty Alliance, is supported by more than 300 anti-poverty groups, trade unions, faith groups, environmentalists and other charities and organisations, alongside legendary Scottish actor Brian Cox+ .
Ahead of the rally, Swinney paid tribute to “those marching for a better, fairer Scotland»
Poverty is a serious matter but this jumping on the band waggon of the virtue signalling collective is not furthering the «fairer» self governing & truly democratic Scotland that only the exercising of full sovereignty might bring.
Swinney & co are pure parish pump politicians.
+Cox whose support for Scottish independence is exceedingly flakey.
Turabdin
“The campaign, led by the Poverty Alliance, is supported by more than 300 anti-poverty groups, trade unions, faith groups, environmentalists and other charities and organisations,…”
….”Poverty is a serious matter but this jumping on the band waggon of the virtue signalling collective”
What do you know of Poverty Alliance that enables you to label them as a “virtue signalling collective?
link to povertyalliance.org
Colonialism “aims only to widening inequality” (Memmi).
The ‘Poverty Alliance therefore first need to understand the root cause of inequality in Scotland which is colonialism.
So long as he heads up a colonial administration Swinney is part of the problem.
300 ANTI POVERTY GROUPS, more a bandwagon than a collective actually.
Poverty in the world’s sixth richest economy is suggestive too.
I have no faith in these charitable orgs. they are likely to make things worse and not deal with the underlying problem….powerlessness.
Some can make a good living out of heading up these orgs.
Why would environmentalists want to alleviate poverty?
There is no human better for the environment than a human without even a pot to piss in.
OK, maybe a dead human IS better, but you take my point.
Oh my God! The colonialists prancin’ aboot this joint are, to a bot, just one galaxy-sized bore.
They behave like a single organism spreading its tentacles of tediousness over every interesting comment writ doun in this place by actual real-live genuine independence-supporting Scots.
Perhaps the greatest crime England inflicted on the world wasn’t thon ‘up-its-ain-erse empire’… but its capacity tae bore hauf the planet tae fuckin’ death.
‘… but its capacity tae bore hauf the planet tae fuckin’ death.’
Maybe Northie, maybe, but there’s always room for further improvement – and one can always learn from an undisputed master of said “craft”.
Kudos! 🙂
Lack of self awareness alert.
Maybe because this is an echo chamber for a small group of folk who really need to get outside a bit more and see what the majority of folk actually think?
I can see no possibility at the moment of a new referendum succeeding so don’t want another carried out at the moment.
In the future if things change maybe this will change but I can’t see it in the near future.
I have went from a consistent SNP voter to even thinking about voting reform because of the sheer incompetence of the SNP.
I also hope corbyns your party also manages to take out the greens even though I would never vote for him.
I may no have contempt for the SNP but I actually detest the greens
Rob – see my reply to you at 12.14 today.
@ ROB’s consistent negativity , I believe part of your problem is that you are not an independence supporter BUT a Scum Nonce Party supporter , there is a VAST difference , the snp is infested with brainless moronic deviants like swinney who cannot tell the difference between a lunatic and a FEMALE , and who are more interested in what is in children’s underwear
NO ONE who is sane would want that combination to run their country BUT GUESS WHAT that combination of fuckwits of ALL parties are exactly who has been governing the WHOLE of the uk for decades ,the snp are NOT independence and INDEPENDENCE is NOT the snp , Scotland is NO DIFFERENT to any other country we have MORONS and we have INTELLIGENT people it just so happens we have elected the morons instead of the intelligent people , BUT that can change if we want it to ,what CANNOT change is if we let the English keep on electing the MORONS repeatedly and indefinitely OUR position will NOT get better because no matter what we vote for we get what THEY want , independence is a CHANCE for Scotland to get BETTER
‘prancing’
That’s what the Lefty Losers do. Prance and scream obscenities.
The game is over. The adults are on their way.
Like you,you mean?
Things going on in Scotland.
ISP weekly bulletin.
link to isp.scot
@Alf Baird
“The ‘Poverty Alliance therefore first need to understand the root cause of inequality in Scotland which is colonialism.”
Go and tell them, Alf, not me. Easier to reach than the UN.
While you’re at it pop in and tell public health researchers. I’ve done it with some already.
Sent your book to Swinney?
The SNP leadership have the information but choose to ignore it, and UN decolonization, whilst depending on Westminster!
IF YOU ARE colonized physically or intellectual «power» you imagine to be not for you.
To think about it gives headaches. Better leave it alone…..
An existential psychological matter more than party political.
A few headaches is much better than being a docile apologist for «bondage»
Yes, precisely that; the ‘docile apologists’ masquerading as nationalists and claiming to want to decolonize a people they claim are not colonized!
The root cause of inequality is human nature, sam.
There never has been an equal society. Never will be one either, not for as long as human beings are recognisably human.
Shame you’ve hitched your impossible wagon to the cause of Scottish Indy, but you and your like-minded associates will go to your graves, never acknowledging how, by narrowing the appeal of Indy, you played a major part in stopping it from happening.
Opposition to Minimum Unit Pricing in Holyrood by the Tories was only overcome by introducing a sunset clause which meant the effect of the policy would be reviewed six years down the line and the policy continued or discontinued after informed parliamentary debate in 2024.
There was no opposition to the policy continuing in the 2024 debate except from 18 Conservatives as shown in the comment below from The Lancet.
“Commending PublicHealth Scotland’s evaluation of minimum unit pricing
We are concerned that the complaint from a member of the Scottish Parliament to the UK Statistics Authority regarding the findings of Public Health Scotland’s evaluation of a minimum unit price for alcohol,1 whether intentionally or not, gives the impression of seeking to undermine the policy.
This high-quality evaluation studied a population-level intervention in a changing set of circumstances and a charged political environment.The 5-year legal challenge by parts of the alcohol industry indicates the commercial and political interests at play in alcohol policy in the UK and internationally. The key finding of the report estimated a 13·4% fall in alcohol-specific mortality in Scotland due to minimum unit pricing.2
Comparing trends in Scotland and England, including during the COVID-19 pandemic when alcohol deaths were increasing in many countries,3,4 is an entirely appropriate approach. This summary of research on minimum unit pricing is comprehensive, including interviews with individuals who fear the policy will be detrimental to them personally or financially. The Public Health Scotland approach of emphasising population-level findings is the right one for assessing population-level interventions, such as minimum unit pricing. The alternatives proposed by the Scottish Conservatives are neither feasible nor appropriate.
The concentration of the decrease in mortality in the lowest income groups is particularly welcome, as a narrowing of health inequalities was one of the key intentions of the policy and it has been achieved. Policy makers can be confident that there are several hundred people with low income in Scotland who would have died as a result of alcohol, who are alive today as a result of minimum unit pricing.”
I’m never sure who’s worse for society, “experts say” or the impressionable people like yourself who believe any nonsense as long as self declared experts said it.
MUP is a stupid idea and people who support it are MUPpets.
All I need to know from you is whether you had your Covid jags.
I already know everything else about you I want to know.
When inquiring about Covid jags, the key questions are:
1) Are you under 40 and free of serious health complications? If so, how do you feel about being forced into being “immunised” against an illness that posed and poses no real risk to you?
2) If you are of any age and free of serious health complications, are you one of the many people whose health has been damaged by the Covid vaccines? If so, how do you feel about the vaccines necessarily being of such an experimental nature, the the developers and manufacturers were indemnified in advance against all future liabilities?
3) Given that all Covid vaccines have a tailing off effect, such that after 6 months, the vaccinated have no more resistance to infection than the unvaccinated, and given that the unvaccinated now make up the majority of the population, how do you feel about “herd immunity” now being the first line of defence against Covid, given that a few years back, “herd immunity” was compared to being like a license to slaughter innocents that was promoted only by exterminatory fascists?
4) If you unthinkingly and unquestionably swallowed all the propaganda during the Covid Years, and avidly tuned in to hear the every pronouncement of Scotland’s Mammie on the TV each day, how do you feel now about being such an unmitigated numpty for such a long time?
And the Yoons are screaming Hail Farage. How long before Farage is putting rapists and murderers in Black Uniforms with Swastikas. We will have the English/Brit Middle Class Wokists to thank for it.
It’s that sort of petulant screaming that is going to get farage in as PM.
The silent majority of folk that the politicians are ignoring are just about to give them a huge kick in the ass. In Scotland as well as England.
The majority of Scots don’t agree with unlimited immigration or open borders, the gra agenda, the net zero mania, the far left agenda of the governments etc etc.
Both governments are well out of touch with the populace.
Farage is a tit, no question, but reform is probably going to form the next UK government and be at least the second biggest party in the SP because folk have lost patience with the current parties and they seem to be the only viable alternative that could actually topple the existing parties.
Calling them fascists is not going to stop them, only actually listening to what the populace want and Taking away their platform will, so how likely is that if you think just calling them names will work? It wont
Dear Rob,
I agree with you on all the facts. You re-inforce your arguments by saying correctly at the end that: “It won’t”(by calling them names).
Earlier on you said that “Farage is a tit”! What sort of language is that? Remindes me of, mostly women commentators who refer to men they don’t agree with as another piece of female anatomy as “c***s”!
Unlimited immigration from England?
But surely if mup had not been introduced the poverty numbers would have been reduced by that same several hundreds, would that have not also been a benefit?
I’ll drink to that Rob, cheers!
I wonder what readers think of hundreds of masked men,dressed entirely in black,chanting Islamic slogans and closing a main street in Tower Hamlets this afternoon.
“Cherrybank”….that’s a new one.
Or just a new “name”?
A few of the regulars are thinking “bring it on”.
Pro-ham ass anti-semitism is the default position of a few on here. Every once in a while, they drop a wee signal into one of their posts, just to remind “the faithful” they are still at one with the cause.
It has calmed down a bit since the world’s greatest half-Scot, President Donald Trump, strong-armed an uneasy peace and the release of the hostages.
But if the new status quo breaks down, they’ll be back to cheering on the west-hating, misogynistic, kaffir-killing medievalists.
It’s unclear just how much they aspire to building a new G@za in Scotland’s green and pleasant land, but why take any chances at all? It’s too fecking cold and wet to spend the rest of our lives existing in the piles of rubble that used to be our homes.
I think the overwhelming majority of Scots would like to play down trumps Scottish roots…..
Well, Rob, that’s what you think.
I think differently. Getting the hostages home and ending the shooting war was a big deal for me, and President Trump did that. If we Scots can’t acknowledge a real achievement then we’re collectively further gone than I had realised.
Perhaps there’s a poll that provides some evidence for what either of us think. Otherwise, there’s little point in speculating.
I would hope that independence-minded readers might think England is at some point going to be a foreign country with whom Scotland would want to be on friendly terms and any London issues are their concern not ours.
Hmmm.
Worth remembering that with in excess of 100,000 Scots living in it, London is the most populous Scottish city in the UK by some considerable margin.
Errmmm…..the most populous Scottish city in the UK is surely Glasgow?
The most populous Scottish city outside Scotland may well be London, though to what extent many of the “proud Scots but…” types who live there regard themselves as primarily British or Scottish or both is an open question.
As discussions with the moonhowlers in here WRT to franchise restriction have sometimes brought to light, it will be interesting to see how many of those in the diaspora (whether in the rest of the UK or other “parts foreign”) who are entitled Scottish citizenship actually avail themselves of it post independence?
My experience of spending 25 years in England suggests that fellow Scots down there fell in to 2 camps. First, those who saw themselves as British first and Scottish second (“emotionally Scottish” I used to call them) who were unlikely ever to move back and were steadfastly pro-union.
Second, those who saw themselves as Scottish first and British only because that’s what it said on their passport and they had no other option. Many of them intended to move back (as I did) and even if not would definitely have preferred Scottish citizenship and tended to be pro-independence.
The former outnumbered the latter around 2 to 1 in my experience.
The blood and soil ethno-nationalist fringe in here would do well to remember that it’s estimated there are around 800,000 folk in the rest of the UK who would qualify for Scottish citizenship post indy if the normal Irish style precedent was used.
@Andy – but in the worldview of the blood and soil types, Scots living abroad wouldn’t be able to vote either so that isn’t seen as a problem.
@ Cherrybank
TBH not much time and thought of mine wasted thinking about what’s going on in Tower Hamlets, because immigration is a power reserved to London Rule, and it’s just yet another example of the shit state of being in a union with the Kingdom of England which has a ten to one democratic advantage over our Kingdom of Scotland.
So for the time being, we just have to put up with various shite policies foisted onto us by a government elected by a larger Kingdom with considerably different wonts and needs than our own.
But what do you think about it, seeing as you posted the question…
Assuming Reform do win the next GE in 2029 (and a lot can chance before then, so the electorate in England may well bottle it, when push comes to shove, resulting in a hung parliament) is it really the cataclysmic event some predict? Sure, it would require a swing of unprecedented proportions for them to win, but while that would be an apocalyptic event in the short term, it wouldn’t take long for the same disillusionment to kick in as it has with Starmer, especially when the masses find out Emperor Farage has no clothes. He’s made a career out of being a controlled opposition grifter, rallying on platforms of what he’s AGAINST, while never being truly held to account or lay out what he’s actually FOR. Being PM is a different ballgame to being a pressure group for Eurosceptics and “getting Brexit done”.
Aye, and as it could be years till next GE, and many months till next year’s diddy devolved “Scottish” parliament election.
Campaigning for both hasn’t really started yet, so spending inordinate amounts of time analysing and arguing about polls rather than actually working to effect positive change and getting rid of at least some of the current crop of grifting sellout Party twats is just wasting time.
“lay out what he’s actually FOR”
He’s FOR throwing the millions of illegal crims and grifters back into the sea.
That’s good enough for me, and perhaps one or two other voters.
We’re spending tens of billions of pounds we can’t afford on these unwanted every year, plus they’re running rampage with a crime wave that is affecting millions of people, whether it’s narcotics, intimidation, so called “petty” theft, or the stuff that makes the headlines, such as innocent women being slaughtered by a screwdriver-wielding nutcase.
Enough.
President Trump has shown it is possible to make progress against the Blob that stymies every effort to advance the will of the majority over the entrenched minorities who have grabbed power to advance their own agendas.
There is some hope that Farage has been taking lessons from him.
TBQFH, if Farage does get into power, we must all wish him well. Because if he is thwarted and fails, what comes next will not be pretty.
Clown.
Does ‘colonized’ mean you have had something done to your colon?
It means you have been colonised.
Un-colonised Scots write “colonised”.
It’s those Scots who have succumbed to US cultural colonisation who write “colonized”.
That’s a fact that never ceases to amuse. That and the fact that the afflicted are blissfully unaware of their own colonised condition.
MAY I REFER YOU TO THIS re the ise or ize usage.
link to home.oxfordowl.co.uk
English is stuffed with such rather silly spelling traps…..check v cheque, program v programme, in those two cases the latter are pseudo french affectation and those redundant «e»s in such words as private & examine without the e still same pronunciation….
Scots/Scottis is logical in such matters I understand. Program first appears in Scottish texts in the early 1600s.
In Arabic consonants rule, vowels know their place.
Interesting take on my “negativity”
For clarity I not voted or supported the SNP since the end of Salmonds leadership when I voted yes.
At the moment, if you check I say this consistently, I do not want another referendum and if there was one, at the moment I am pretty sure it would fail and I would be one of those voting no.
I would like the SNP to be removed as incompetent and not representing my values, nothing really about independence but mostly everything else.
I would also love the greens to be removed from government for the same reasons.
I have no time for labour and have never voted for them.
Similar for the Tories and lib dems.
Don’t have much time for reform either but they may end up getting my vote to see what they do, can’t see how they can do much worse than the rest and I always vote.
Personally I believe the SP has been a spectacular failure and I would prefer it dissolved for all the good it does.
If things change then maybe my views will change but I am not holding my breath
Yes.
The unprepared and unaware start to talk through it.
Dan @ 9.04
It’s very noticeable that many SNP hopefuls are suddenly starting to appear online speaking about their constituencies, when I suspect that, in reality, they’ve done very little to make a noise and try and save Scotland from power lines, Freeport’s and SEZs, promote Scottish owned industry.
Reality is a itch
link to archive.is
MOROCCAN APHORISM.
“We have little, we need little, we want little.”
Poverty?
Maybe we might all benefit from wanting little in our unaccountably over complicated «civilized» existence.
Turabdin @ 10.38
We are so linguistically logical that folk in Dumbarton live in Dunbartonshire, owing I believe to the pig headedness of two different clerks (town & county) who followed their individual preferred phonetic pronunciation, responsible for so many spelling variations in our names and language.
Five thousand people demand more poverty in Scotland. The call for poverty has replaced the call for independence.
They weren’t too clear on who was responsible for all the poverty but they certainly want more of it. The up side in this madhouse is that they marched for ten years and achieved Hee Haw. So the demand for poverty will probably fall on deaf ears. What a strange world we live in.
Wonder how many of those thousands who marched against poverty in edinburgh voted No in 2014?
Better together, aye right.
Mike D just in case you are unaware Beggan is one of our yoonionist fuckwit Scotland haters who takes great delight in denigrating and demeaning Scotland and Scots, if he even is Scottish he is a cringing wannabe engerlish sweaty sock
No voters eh! swines put a stop to your Indypendy magic trans roundabout. All those millions of pounds spent on Hee Haw.
How many people at that righteous demonstration have their snouts in the gravy boat? Most of them I think. How many poor people have been helped by this Lefty self righteous bullshit. None. Still as poor as a church mouse with an eviction order.
You clowns just don’t know when you’re beat.
A GUY I’VE never heard of defected from ALBA party to join Corbyn’s unionist faction.
No wonder Scottish nationalism is becoming a joke.
PLUS.
«A UK defence minister has said Scotland has a critical role in preparing the UK for all-out war with Russia — after claiming Scotland becoming independent would be a “win” for Vladimir Putin».
from THE NATIONAL.
SCOTLAND really needs to WAKE UP and smell the rotting cadavre of the old order.
I like your video game posts and culture stuff so it is a yes from me.
So I see you like Swinney have given up on the Indypendy and opted for the Death Cult instead. Does waving the Saltire not do it for you anymore?
I hoped you thanked The President of the United States for bringing peace to these people.
Mark,
Do you believe the ‘peaceful’ answer is to outdo the Death Cult by murdering as many toddlers as you can get away with?
Is that why the likes of you call them “funsize terrorists” and excuse the murder as “mowing the lawn before it gets long”?
From the article: ‘The appeal, then, of a party which promises basically to just leave you the hell alone and stop breaking things is obvious and measurably growing by the day’.
Perhaps, but if that is implying that therefore people will vote Reform, then it really does depend on who you are – white British, maybe, but anyone else being left well alone? I don’t think so, not by the government, nor the hardcore supporters who will be given the green light to talk endlessly about a ‘whiter Britain’ and ‘mass deportations’ (of people here legally). They already are, both of them, all the time. And even then, at the end of the day, Reform are going to be far more authoritarian party in power than any of the rest – just listen to their rhetoric and who they admire – Trump, Orban, Putin! You think some of the woke shite is an attack on freedoms – yes, but far worse is to come with Reform. The reverse will be a lot worse.
Also on Caerphilly, one of the obvious things that happened was tactical voting to keep Reform out, and it worked easily, and it is pretty clear to me this will increase as a tactic by voters. 60% of voters voted against Reform. True this was helped hugely by having Plaid as an alternative but this kind of figure does not suggest Reform are going to sweep into power as easily as some imagine: Farage’s approval rating is currently 30%.
There is significant opposition to Reform and ‘leaving you well alone’ says to many, do sod all to actually help the country, like fund the NHS, public services and be administratively competence (have you seen that Kent council video?), whilst generally creating chaos with civil unrest as they start the immigration deportation raids, breaking up families and dragging people to the ports. That is not ‘stopping breaking things’, it is the opposite.
Interesting topic regards the Celtic nations, and the rumblings both old and new.
And listening to programme on How to Save England at roughly same time,
The only difference is that the speakers class England as England Wales, Scotland and N Ireland.
This has always been Englands perception of Englands Britain, even prior to the
union it attemtpted to include France,
And that is the problem for the other three nations under Colonisation, along with the connection of loss of resources and poverty and someone else eliminating your people through importing people with separate beliefs, cultures and language with the purpose to reduce the strength of voices of Celtic nations.
It gives your land and seas to other after people taking what England needs for itself as Englands wants and needs.
What it does not give away it rents or leases the Celtic nations homeland to foreign operations / corporations for steady ready income for the treasury and bank of England.
The other nations that make up Englands Britain have failed to thrive during this long history of colonisation, and are well aware of the injustices.
Now the secret think tanks and Societies are willing to do the same to England, and suddenly the very thing that was done by England to Scotland, Ireland and Wales is rising in England,
Nationalism.
How to Save Englands Britain. As they become aware there is no such thing as far left or far right, just puppet politicians selling their country for foreign gold.
James says “he other nations that make up Englands Britain have failed to thrive during this long history of colonisation, and are well aware of the injustices.”.
How true.
Of course, in the century following theAct of Union, Edinburgh was transformed from an open sewer with shouts of “Gardy-loo!” to The Athens of the North. Glasgow became the Second City of the British Empire. Scots gained positions of power all over the world. Scotch whisky followed them as a prestige drink.
Imagine what we would have achieved if only we had thrived.
Factchecker,
There is absolutely no doubt that some Scots benefitted from the Union, I don’t ever think that has been questioned, to conflate this with all Scots or most Scots, is disingenuous, as your claim that whisky is only a prestige drink because of the Union or that progress only happened in Scotland because of the Union.
Other countries throughout the globe have their own “prestige drink” and progress, socially and scientifically was inevitable. All regardless of their relationship with Westminster.
It was of course, on one hand, economically beneficial that our southern neighbour stopped rampaging across our borders, causing no end of trouble but unfortunately, on the other hand, economically detrimental to Scotland to have England’s fingers in our pockets.
The grabbing, greedy fingers are still there.
Karma’s a b@tch, even if it takes hundreds of years to payback.
Will England save its Englands Britain, or will England save England,?
Surely the common sense approach is to return the laws and borders of the separate four nations. As this reduces the odds of infiltration and increases control of ones own borders and quadripules the laws in Britain, making it very difficult to over come Britain as a Island,
All that is needed is a agreement never to attack each other nations within Britain, it does not need to include trade restrictions or taxation unless it enters across your borders of sea and land,
It does not need to share a monarch or political parties, and each having their own countries elections.
There are better treaties to be had than the one governing controlling one we have right now . Of course it needs ironing out, but the principle is simple and should remain simple,
Four nations each equally in control of their own Country. Own laws, own borders, own systems and own parliaments,
@ Andy Ellis
Your anecdotal evidence of the possible voting intentions of Scots living in England in a future independence referendum is not the only information available about the diaspora.
link to myresearchspace.uws.ac.uk
The recommendations might be of interest.
I think also the “conclusions” part of this small scale study would be of interest suggesting changes in the views on Scottish independence among the diaspora.
link to onlinelibrary.wiley.com
“How to Save England “, was in the Spectator and on youtube if you want to watch it.
Dan@ 5.49 PM I though the paramilitary March in East London was sinister but what was even more sinister was the failure of the television news to report this mass contempt for British law and society.
“…failure of the television news to report…”
Ha! Do try and catch up. Welcome to Scotland. You aint’ seen nothing yet.
YoonNews inc.
The right wing populist scam is the biggest 3 card monte since Thatcherism.
Everyone of them will still do what America says. Fully support the American rules based order and peace through strength. Which is start wars when They want and call for ceasefires when it suits them. Create a wasteland and call it peace.
They say they support family, christian values while putting an extreme head chopper in Syria.
They say they believe in free speech but bash students over their heads with police batons. Defund and threaten universities who actually do defend free speech.
They say the believe in the constitution while sending the army into US cities while blowing ancient old fascist dog whistles. Kill people without a fair trial.
All they have is trickle down economics and give taxes cuts to the rich and use the tax payer money myths, deficit myths and debt myths to push through austerity while funding the military industrial complex with $ trillions.
As the alt right media spread hate and division with their fascist dog whistles. 98% of rapes and assaults on women are carried out by Christian white men in this country.
If you think the populist right ( Thatcherism 2.0) are going to give us independence then the sheep are brainwashed fools.Clearly unable to think for themselves and fail to see the sheer and utter hypocrisy that drips from every right wing populists mouth.
Sweetheart Robinson is getting brainwashed in Israel as we speak and will return a racing psychopathic zionist.
See Glenn Greenwald ‘s latest expose on the matter.
Wait, Labour actually reduced the chocolate ration?
Heavens above.
The picture you paint is much the same in Germany where the established parties are falling over each other to condemn the AfD but are doing absolutely nothing to address the issues that the people voting for AfD see as important. There too, the electorate has tired of politicians’ worthless promises.
The only way to stop people voting for challenger parties like Reform is to take action on the issues, not mutter platitudes and stick their heads in the sand. As long as Labour, the Tories & Libdems are pretending to do something while the electorate faces the realities, what else should people do?
Strangely, in Scotland this isn’t happening – people who want independence continue to vote SNP long after its become blindingly obvious they will never deliver it, never mind provide anything remotely close to an acceptable level of competent government.