The truth will come out
How it started, just one month ago:
And how it’s going:
But it’s quite a lot worse than it looks.
Because in fact the SNP has lost a breathtaking 53,505 members in just over three years since it started adopting the policy of gender self-ID.
According to the party’s own accounts, it had 125,691 members on the 1st of January 2020. And now in mid-March 2023, a whopping 43% of them are gone.
We can’t of course attribute all of those to gender reform. But it’s hard to think what else could have triggered such a precipitous drop. However, it was only 30 days later that Nicola Sturgeon delivered her infamous “Betrayer” speech, when her top-secret masterplan to save Scotland from Brexit turned out to be this:
So it’d probably be fair to deduce that a combination of disappointment with Sturgeon’s lack of indy strategy and anger at her stance on gender led to the exodus. The only other party to have lost members at a (very) comparable rate is the Liberal Democrats, who haven’t had an existential crisis of purpose but who have also embraced “gender reform” with fanatical enthusiasm.
Labour (who’ve gone rather lukewarm on the idea since Keir Starmer replaced Jeremy Corbyn) have only lost 20% in the same period, and the Tories – the only major party to have taken a reasonably firm stance in defence of women’s rights) – just 5%.
But the reasons are a matter for debate. The facts are not, and the facts are that the SNP is haemorrhaging members at a terrifying – and accelerating – rate.
The House Of Commons Library document from which the above graphs are taken is dated 30 August 2022 and still shows the SNP at 104,000 members, which means it’s shed over 31,000 in just six and a half months as the party and (particularly) its leader have become horribly enmeshed in a swamp around the railroaded Gender Recognition Reform bill and the conviction of transgender rapist Isla Bryson.
(Things are in fact probably quite a bit worse, as we know from testimony on social media that the SNP actually takes at least a few months to register members having left, often still emailing them a year or more later. So it’s highly probable that even today’s figure is perhaps 10,000 higher than the reality, given current attrition rates.)
It’s worth noting in passing that the loss of tens of thousands of members attracted no public action whatsoever from Nicola Sturgeon, even though she’d rushed to record an impassioned and very personal “broom cupboard” video when just half a dozen of the party’s most obnoxious and extreme transactivists quit in January 2021, pleading for them to return and fast-tracking several of them into council seats when they did.
Curiously, throughout this period the party’s stated income from membership has barely moved at all. Indeed, 2021 was its most lucrative year since 2016.
Those figures, and a significant number of other unanswered questions around the SNP’s finances, raise a whole slew of questions which mean that unpopularity may be the least of the party’s concerns in the weeks and months to come.
It may find itself with little to laugh about.
The acceleration of resignations came around the time they were seen to OBVIOUSLY gerrymander the NEC by including voting rights on the NEC for interest groups that were never elected by the membership as a whole.
They don’t take people off the list for 18 months (lots of begging letters – please come back, give us your money, buy raffle tickets, times are hard please come back on the cheap etc) so it will be even lower.
So who was responsible for the outrageous lie on 13 february??”
“Only 300”???
So will we find out the member numbers who have already voted? Also why 78k ballots were sent out for a party with only 72K members?
Less members now than the LibDems.
Quite the legacy…
I wonder how one makes the punishment fit the crime in this instance?
What are the «regional» membership numbers for the British parties operating in Scotland?
I suspect such data are withheld.
Wonder why?
The £600,000 used to hide the collapse of the membership.
The complete and utter lack of progress to indy is another huge factor surely?
There is no ‘Isla Bryson’.
Wee Ginger Dug will turn the membership graph upside down and scream success
Any info on how many former members have been given ballots? I’ve heard a few reports.
Really makes one wonder what the point of going all in on a demonstrably fringe position on gender rights and essentially murdering your party was/is? Unless the Murrells are actually that stupid (they’re not), what are the real, logical reasons?
I’m probably a bit thick but how can membership income have stayed at that level in 2021 when numbers have been dropping??.
…”it had 125,691 members on the 1st of January 2020. Just over two years later, a whopping 43% of them are gone.”
Just over three years, no?
So subscriptions per member work out at an average of 20 to 25 pounds per year. General membership of Alba is 60 pounds per year. How many of the SNP electorate are buying, incredibly cheaply, the ability to influence the party of government?
Blimey! Stuart Hosie is going to have a wee bit egg on his face for that chortle.
Bloody hell.
That laugh was crazy.
They cannot hold back the dam breaking.
Now will we see those covering their arses start to drop others in it?
30k lost members is a piffling price to pay for maintaining ideological purity and that Stonewall seal of approval. The 30k were probably all TERFs, bigots, racists, homophobes, anti-semites, …… anyway.
The Murrells are turning NuSNP into the Workers’ Institute for Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought. Look it up.
And the 72,186 figure should be believed because …… ????
Is it any wonder Peter Murrell didn’t want the actually number of the membership know, its fallen quite a bit. I’d partly due the gender policies and partly due to folk being fed up with Sturgeon’s carrot dangling on independence, and a few other reasons as well.
What’s interesting is that even though such a large number of members have left the party, the SNP hierarchy haven’t changed course to stop the hemorrhaging of party members.
On clarity over this SNP leadership contest, the candidate Ash Regan should also bring up that its unacceptable for GCHQ to be involved in the contest in any fashion whatsoever.
In a true democracy party membership should be a public matter.
The register of who has potential influence in parties ought to be freely verifiable.
Another example of the establishments’ fondness for secrecy.
I resigned on the day when the GRA vote was passed and I suspect many did before and after that so I’m not shocked to see the nosedive in figures. I honestly considered it several times leading up to that but passing the bill was the last straw for me.
So when they said “30,000 is not just wrong, it’s out by about 30,000” they in fact meant 60k?
You hint at the REAL STROY here. Membership income remaining the same when membership falls by a quarter….with all the other financial background noise (600k, resignations, access to information, personal loans etc)…’there may be trouble ahead’
To be honest I am not convinced the GRE issue drove people out. I think it is the constant back peddling on indy.
How many times have they said next time and they can’t even be bothered to attend aan AUOB march.
Says it all, they gave up on indy or were talked into delay after delay.
They are beyond incompetent.
I hope ash goes for an interdict and puts a spoke in the wheel. The message thereafter can be join alba. Also a good time not to have the word nationalist in the name.
One has to wonder why the NEC has not fsacked him
@ TheSNPLeftMe 4.31
I think you may have hit the nail on the head. Using the fund to renew or ‘extend’ lapsed memberships would neatly import it to the side of the balance sheet where you needed the money.
If you say it quick enough it almost sounds legitimate.
@Skip_NC 4:41
Just checked back and I was paying £10 a month in subs and the missus £5. Son was on min level at £1 per month. All now resigned.
The manipulation of voting rights on the NEC was the last straw for us.
From what Kate Forbes has said,”Plummeting membership figures shows continuity won’t cut it”, clearly if Humza Yousaf wins by fair or foul means, then it looks like the SNP will be finished as a party.
BBC seem to be going very light on the outrage of it all.
Why would the BBC soft peddal an SNP horror story.
FFS!
If the new number is not fake (too), the implication is that there’s been a loss of at least 50,000 Regan-Forbes votes since start of coughid – and that DESPITE all the TV appearances by NS that were portrayed in MSM as being beneficial (either that or the mortality rate was much much higher in the membership than the payroll).
Presumably a list of post codes of resident members, and nationalities/ countries of residence/ voting rights of non residents, is surely now necessary to help determine how many real enemies may have replaced them, albeit whilst paying higher subs.
Alan Smith @Political_AlanS
Humza Yousaf’s statement on the membership figures – hoping it will “put to bed claims and hearsay that seek to undermine our party’s integrity”
link to twitter.com
An AUOB Spokesperson said the SNP have in excess of 720,000 members.
Shug…
“Why would the BBC soft peddal an SNP horror story.”
To paraphrase a Bond villain…
“Your SNP is really…our SNP”.
Would be interesting to know how many employees there are in the SNP. I understand the payroll increases and employees increase every year. Funded from what?
“Because in fact the SNP has lost a breathtaking 53,505 members in just 26 months”
And that is of course if you believe the official figure the party has given (72,180) as accurate and trustworthy.
Given their strong reluctance to releasing the figure and given that four full voting days have already passed before the membership figure was released, personally, I think there might be a good number of ghosts hiding behind that figure.
I have just checked and the full SNP membership for a year is £12. So you can buy 10,000 full memberships (10,000 votes) for just £120,000. Seniors and students pay just £5 per year. So 10,000 memberships of those would cost in total £50,000. People living overseas pay only £3 per year. 10,000 memberships of those would cost £30,000. So 30,000 votes for £200,000. This would be an absolute bargain for the British state to secure a particular leader and take control of the party.
If they have had access to the results, four days might have given them enough time to project how many more votes the continuity candidate might require to win confortably the contest and to adjust the membership figure accordingly.
Unless that figure is verified by an independent observer (and the members demonstrated as real) I do not believe it.
Yes, I am an unapologetic cynic when it comes to Sturgeon’s SNP.
I am afraid if the official result is a victory for Yousaf, given the circumstances, I will still think the contest was rigged.
Useless should be commended for his transparency as in ‘you can see right through him’.
Surely Yousaf is a shoo in to win as the vast majority of snp members who left will be anti Sturgeon? A lot of wishful thinking go on here.
Toby dog 4:41pm
The missing £600k as somebody already pointed out. Hundreds of companies have shuffled money to hide the true state of their finances but you can only do it for so long. Think about the last gasp Murrell loan to the SNP.
Why the Police can’t see it is the baffling part.
That’s one of the numbers that was asked for.
The other is how many ballots have been sent out.
And it’ll be fascinating to see how many come back and get counted.
I don’t know where they get the figure from, but according to the Beeb they had 8500 at the end of last year.
link to bbc.co.uk
I’m going to stick with my first estimate.
Given the desperate circumstances that might tempt the leadership to use the missing indy funds to cover rapidly declining membership income, legal fees, etc, i’d put the real, current, membership closer to 50,000, if that.
So my question persists.
How many votes have been cast for each candidate so far, and how many are verifiably genuine?
At one of the party conferences around 2016 there was a backdrop banner with membership total 126000+
It was the sacking of Cherry that did it for me. A M.P. that took on the UK government twice and beat them twice, yet Sturgeon got rid of her to safeguard her leadership, unbelievable!
I wonder how many of the quoted 72k members were onboarded in the weeks and months just prior to Sturgeons resignation in anticipation of a leadership election.
@robertkknight 5:07pm
With Stewart Hosie stroking his white pussy.
One_Scot says:
16 March, 2023 at 4:54 pm
“clearly if Humza Yousaf wins by fair or foul means”
I’m not sure what would be worse for the SNP, him winning by fair or by foul means? That’s a tough one.
So “Honest John” has no idea how many members the SNP has and it is now confirmed that it has lost 30,000 of them – or circa 30%. Every membership organisation I am aware of, the movement in actual numbers – up or down – is scrutinised to the nth degree. The idea that no-one in the SNP has informed the Depute Leader or that he himself hasn’t had an interest to find this out himself is ludicrous. The Westminster leader also seems remarkably ill informed.
You would presume that, If Kate wins the SNP membership will fall or if Ash wins the membership will fall and if Humza wins it will defiantly fall from both side of Kate and Ash.
Of course, some donkey with glazed eyes and a fixed grin will be wheeled out with the stock excuses:
i) C-19
ii) Cost of Living Crisis
iii) All political parties have lost members
iv) Whatever else the intern at HQ can dream up
But putting to one side excuses i through iv…
NO OTHER POLITICAL PARTY HAS LOST 43% OF ITS MEMBERS IN THE LAST THREE YEARS!
How’s that legacy coming along Nicla?
Sturgeon says “her” party isn’t in crisis.
She goes on to add.
“My party is having a democratic leadership election – growing pains for any organisation can be painful, but they are important.”
On the above, what she means is the fix is in and I call it democratic.
“I think it’s incumbent for the three candidates standing to succeed me that they remember the task is to retain the trust of the Scottish people that we have won consistently over, not just the eight years of my leadership, but consistently since 2007.”
On the above, Sturgeon actually thinks that she still has the trust of the Scottish people, the sooner she’s out of Bute House the better, I can’t bear to listen to her voice anymore after what she’s done.
link to msn.com
People leave political parties between elections. It is not a given that they have left for any reason but apathy.
“ The acceleration of resignations came around the time they were seen to OBVIOUSLY gerrymander the NEC by including voting rights on the NEC for interest groups that were never elected by the membership as a whole.”
For the record, corruption around selection of local MSPs was the final straw for me, but the creeping conversion of the party to a gender cult played a part.
Interesting from Craig Murray.
“Here is an interesting fact.
In three years the SNP lost 44% of their members. Yet their membership income hardly wavered.
Just one of many fascinating anomalies in the SNP accounts.”
link to twitter.com
So where is their funding coming from if not the membership? Not including Short Money.
Oops, dropped a zero.
Anyway, that would suggest at least 13000 members lost in 11 weeks, I.e. almost 1200 per week, or 176 per day…
I left mainly because of the treachery against Alex Salmond (but gender woo-woo was also a factor). The combination of these factors indicated that this was a group of chancers and worse that had no interest whatsoever in the only purpose for which I was in the SNP: Independence.
And so it has proven.
I reckoned that any individual, collaborators and party that can try to jail an innocent man is capable of just about any perfidy.
I couldn’t stand the stench.
Never been a member (of any political party), but mind when the SNP was the proper umbrella indy party and the Yoons kept trying to declare ‘peak SNP’ as support kept growing. The Covid Queens legacy is becoming clearer and clearer.
Parroting one or two others above, another couple of prime factors were the gerrymandering & neutering of the NEC & the utter betrayal over Brexit (Scotland shall not be taken out of the EU blah de blah) epitomised by Sturgeon thinking it was a good idea to try to overturn Englands democratic vote by heading to the streets of London for a selfie with Alastair Campbell.
That bastion of truth and honesty, and king of dodging VONC’s John Swinney doesn’t know what all the fuss is about, as his preferred candidate (need you ask) also think everything is above board.
“Mr Swinney, a former SNP leader who backs Humza Yousaf for the top job, said “I don’t know what all this is about”,”
link to msn.com
It was the fiddling of the lists by the corrupt, partisan NEC that saw me out.
Humza has meeting with Ukrainians and asks….we’re are all the men?
Where are the men?’ SNP leadership hopeful’s excruciating gaffe next to Ukrainian women (msn.com)
I resigned from the SNP following the Joanna Cherry debacle, the Alex Salmond conspiracy, the self ID policy idea, the glacial progress towards independence, and the wasting of multiple IndyRef2 mandates.
I believe the SNP no longer wish to prioritise independence at the earliest possible opportunity, favouring being a colonial administration within the context of the breached Treaty of Union.
Independence will now only be achieved by a mass, popular campaign, outwith the UK-sanctioned “Parliament”, reaching out to the United Nations.
Liberation.scot are launching just such a campaign in the coming months. The SNP’s urrent and historical membership together with their substantial electoral support must now engage with the Liberation.Scot organisation and take to the streets and social media in numbers and regularly.
The treatment of Joanna Cherry , the treatment of Alex Salmond , the 600,000 quid “ring fenced for indy 2”, the treatment of Mark Hirst and Craig Murray gave me reason to leave. I didn’t hang about for the GRB or the HCB but they would have been the final straw for me.
Excellent article.
To me it feels like the SNP are the only company in the Scotland allowed to keep their books secret.
If they were a football team they’d be deducted points.
It’s only because the Lord Advocate lives in Bute House. She’s protecting them. Pure and simple.
The massive scale fraud police investigation is being coordinated by Murrell. The Bute House shredder is stuffed to the brim. Its overflowing with corruption. I’ll say it.
Mia says:
16 March, 2023 at 5:11 pm
I have just checked and the full SNP membership for a year is £12. So you can buy 10,000 full memberships (10,000 votes) for just £120,000. Seniors and students pay just £5 per year. So 10,000 memberships of those would cost in total £50,000. People living overseas pay only £3 per year. 10,000 memberships of those would cost £30,000. So 30,000 votes for £200,000. This would be an absolute bargain for the British state to secure a particular leader and take control of the party.
If they have had access to the results, four days might have given them enough time to project how many more votes the continuity candidate might require to win confortably the contest and to adjust the membership figure accordingly.
Unless that figure is verified by an independent observer (and the members demonstrated as real) I do not believe it.
.
For £107k you could get 8916 memberships at £12 per year or 36,666 for £3 per member
When will it come out about £600k? Taking forever
@ottomanboi
You just referred to Scotland as a Region !!!!!
@Father Vivian.
I passed the Citz today and the trans flag flies over its walled off car park. This time three years ago it was linking on FB to reviews in the Morning Star. It is one of a number, imo, of places which are not as they seem and which should have charitable status withdrawn.
Well, I had expected to return home this afternoon after a lovely forest walk with the dogs to find some exciting happenings were being reported. This is all a bit of an anti-climax. So, the membership numbers had dropped, well we already knew that and also had a rough figure being bandied about which was pretty close to what was confirmed today. But here we are, still with a dodgy campaign, with yousaf soon to be shoe-horned into the leadership role and all the filth and stench kept firmly covered up while the Sturrells still hold the reins. I wish Ash had stuck to her guns and gone for an interdict till the entire election and party bourach could be cleaned out and thoroughly disinfected. Depressing, we are still no further forward.
In the spirit of saying why we left the SNP. I left in 2015 after the Named Person debacle. Too much interest in our bairns. Read what the Supreme Court judgement said in their after deliberations. Think about the lack of empathy towards the public and their rights in this Judgement. Fast forward and almost every legislation they have introduced suffers from the same Modus Operandi. You have been “Telt” with consequential multiple failures. We start again after the Murrells and their Stooges have gone.
People tend to leave a party that’s been Petering.
In the branch I know best, the exodus of members started right after her Brexit day speech, when people who really wanted independence and had worked for it for decades, realised that their party was led by someone who had no interest in the subject. In fact, it was no longer their party any more.
I notice Paul Hutcheon is reporting that Sturgeon has “held the party together”, when all the evidence shows she has actually gutted it. The SMSM, first with the “facts” and cutting edge analysis, as always.
That laughter from Mr Hosie is almost sitcom-like in its pointed lack of amusement. Actually a bit hypnotic.
Sturgeon’s SNP increasingly didn’t even remotely look like a competent independent Scottish government in waiting. The smug announcement of a publicly owned energy company, only for it to be quietly dropped shortly afterwards with no real reason given, was glaringly manipulative. Or a few years later when they did actually do something, it was to sell-off off renewables energy licenses for what I think was only a seventh of what the US government got per GW for theirs at the same time.
Economic incompetence (incontinence?) was always likely to be their core weakness. Could anyone actually imagine Sturgeon’s SNP, or a continuity version of it, running an independent Scotland? It’s people capable of running an independent Scottish government that matter, not just gaining independence. Sturgeon’s SNP became a dead end in that respect many times over. Take your pick of reasons, it’s a long list.
“According to the party’s own accounts, it had 125,691 members on the 1st of January 2020. And now in mid-March 2023, a whopping 43% of them are gone.”
From 125,691 to 72,186 does not necessarily mean they have lost just 53,505 members.
IMHO, many more than that have left, but have been replaced by tens of thousands of Sturgeon-Murrell supporters, the wokest of the woke who don’t give a damn about independence.
Perhaps still not enough to give Yousaf more than 50% in the first round.
Hence the frenzied efforts to rig the ballots and present the result being flogged by the media led by Pravda GB.
“The most experienced candidate by far” (Copyright Pravda GB), the “yoon” supported candidate, winning with a slim margin over the “fascist” supported candidate.
Regan has nothing to lose and everything to gain by exposing all the corrupt criminals in the SNP.
She will lose all credibility if she accepts the rigged result.
I trust Cherry is giving good free legal advice to Regan.
Writing as someone who doesn’t support independence, you can’t possibly support independence when it could be this lot making it happen – you’ll end up with some chaotic agreement, as the U.K. did with Brexit, or losing huge credibility for the independence movement for a generation.
Change the party wholesale, or support a different party (alba?) before trying to convince the Scottish electorate.
I think it would be fascinating to poll those ex members on the reasons they left the party you could ask:
1) inaction on indy
2)GRR reform
3)pauchling of NEC/removal of internal democratic structures
4) lack of substantial policy
5) A mix/all of the above
For me it would be all of the above.
Hue and Cry (1987): Seduced and Abandoned: Truth:
“…I’ll give you truth for all occasions
I’ll give you truth to keep you calm
Truth to hold the shadows back and truth to save you harm
I’ll bow down to your wishes but there must be a price
I’ll make a whole new world for you and have you in my vice…”:
link to tinyurl.com
I think a lot of you are still in the “denial phase” of grief regarding the SNP.
Regardless of who is elected as “leader” the SNP is over in terms of independence this side of 2040. The Murrells did that.
Lets assume Ash Regan gets in – unlikely but the best option for indy out of a poor choice.
First off she’ll have to get rid of 80% of the Sturgeon loyalist/transcult payroll and somehow manage that without being voted out by them.
Assuming she manages that task (exceptionally unlikely IMHO) she’ll then have to deal with the finances – which are going down the toilet after the next GE as there’s simply no way the SNP aren’t going to lose at least a third of their MPs (more if the sockpuppet gets elected). Their only source of (legal) funding (Short money) will plummet.
That in turn will have a knock-on effect on the next Holyrood election where I expect the SNP to get gubbed, and not only on the list vote.
So realistically, best case is you’re looking at a minority SNP govt in Holyrood with serious splits/party funding issues in 2026.
That’s before you even consider the shambles that is health, transport (ferries are at the stage where you can forget SNP support in the Western Isles), schools and general competence.
Add in the inevitable taint of corruption from the Murrell’s time in power – fundraising fraud, gerrymandering the party, trying to frame Salmond….
They’re done for at least a decade. Time to accept that & move on. The quicker we all do that then the quicker independence will progress.
I don’t believe that even Robin McAlpine has a plan which will dig the SNP out of their self-inflicted Murrell-hole of corruption.
Nikkla just said on BBC Shortbread that she has “no idea” what this is all about.
Does she even talk to Peter?
We have to assume she doesn’t come on here either!
Aye Right!
Still lyin’
@ Dave Sharp
Among the reasons for leaving I would include the Salmond business.
I left because it became obvious Sturgeon and her cowardly cronies were perfectly happy with the status quo. Their party was/is a party of home rule, not independence.
The attack on Salmond was sickening. Sturgeon eagerly teamed up with the bbc’s Sarah Smith in ignoring the verdict and carrying on with their no-smoke-without-fire prejudiced opinion of Salmond. Post court case Sturgeon’s bokesome blend of self-pity and vindictiveness was too egregious for me to bear.
There was also her close relationship with Leslie Evans, the British nationalist civil servant at the heart of Holyrood.
Also the way she and the likes of Ian Blackford were disgustingly quick to come to the defence of the bbc’s James Cook when he deliberately set up a confrontation with independence protestors at a tory party hustings. It contrasted blatantly with Sturgeon’s lack of movement on independence.
Put all that alongside the false promises of action on independence, the ignoring of mandates and the always-eager policy of submitting to English law and anyone with any true desire for our independence can’t fail to condemn her deceit.
She’s a tractor.
Eric 5.02
(An AUOB Spokesperson said the SNP have in excess of 720,000 members.)
Thing is AUOB lie & no named person saying that just a Sturgionite mouthpiece .
@Ian Stewart 6:33pm
You’re wrong. This makes independence all the more imperative. Pro independence supporters won’t give up on independence just because the SNP are cocking things up. They will find other ways to achieve their goal. It is amusing, however, to see britnats still clinging on to their naive belief that the SNP is the independence movement. It’s the only amusing thing mind you.
Country before party.
@ Vestas
Spot on. Trying to achieve independence in this chaos and possible corruption could be disastrous. Better to change the party leadership wholesale and improve its governance so this nonsense can never happen again, and then use that credibility from managing the country competently to convince the electorate of the independence argument. Sturgeon has squandered that opportunity for some years to come.
Strangely it was their council tax reforms that saw me leave not that long after joining in solidarity post 2014. I realized then they were nuts. It was a small issue but they managed to completely alienate me in a couple of emails with my local SNP MSP. Arrogant f**kers.
@sadScot
Yes, agreed.
That would have to be in there as well.
What makes me incredibly angry is the effort and resources the SNP have used into fighting battles that have nothing to do with progressing indy, or harming the cause altogether.
Then you have the likes of Hosie and his manical laughter mocking the whole movement.
They repulse me
I left 3 years ago. Nicola Sturgeons’ infamous speech on January 30th, left me bewildered, with bile in my guts and genuine hate in my heart for the first time in my life. I could thole the priority of the English party’s (Labour, Tory and Libdem) need to continue thieving from the Scots, but I never expected the SNP to do it. In February 2020 I left. I hope that all the truth comes out on the attempted denigration Alex Salmond had to suffer. Wicked, wicked people.
“Nikkla just said on BBC Shortbread that she has “no idea” what this is all about”
Isn’t this woman the leader of the party or is she is just the face while somebody else pulls the strings behind closed doors?
Unbelievable that a leader could be so crass as to say such a thing. If gives the impression she is not in control of her brief.
Its pretty obvious to me the reason why Sturgeon and Co, decided to deliberately set out to destroy the only party that was to function as a vehicle for independence.
They have been infiltrated by Westminster and MI5. These organisations have something very serious on the Sturgeon/Murrell partnership. They are doing what they re told or go to jail for a very long time.
Why else would anyone want to destroy their party by ignoring the public and persecuting independence activists.
Previous to the next Westminster election all pro independence parties must declare in their manifestos that any candidate of theirs elected will not take their seats in England’s house of commons.
Obviously the SNP with unionist Yousaf as leader won’t agree with that. I certainly hope Alba will.
Salmond grew the membership of the SNP to 125,000.
Sturgeon reduced it to 72,000.
Salmond. The greatest leader the SNP had. And Scotland.
Undisputed.
It is only a matter of time before the truth comes out regarding the Salmond scandal. The will not all be able to keep quiet. When the truth comes out it has to be jail time.
Anyway to hell with the remnants of the SNP join Alba, do it now.
Why would anyone in their right mind want to be a member of a misandrist gynocratic party which has bulldozed democracy out off its procedures?
“The truth will come out.”
Not from Sturgeon or from Yousaf.
She said on the news tonight she “wasn’t clear” what the problem is with the election.
He said he’s never had a problem with the process and that “others” needed to provide “evidence” instead of resorting to “smears”.
Please. Let the truth come out soon.
I left in January 2020 when it was clear that Ms Sturgeon was not very interested in independence. I also agree with Frazier at 5.48 that it was not a logical move on the part of an independence party to attempt to deny – admittedly in a spectacularly incompetent fashion – the English (and Welsh) the Brexit for which they voted. I was also clear by that time, that the civil case, at least, against Mr Salmond, was being pursued contrary to all reason. And in that connexion I observe that, at the time (2018 – 2022), the Minister for Community Safety – who has responsibility for civil law and the legal profession itself – was Ash Regan, who also wasn’t a particularly good minister. So I wouldn’t hold out too much hope there either, unless she comes clean.
Ash came over well on Andrew Marr Show on LBC but its not on Global player yet.
I have Alex Salmond’s book. The dream shall never die.
I will tell my kids and grandkids that he was the greatest political leader, I have and will ever know. Its impossible for his legacy to be surpassed.
I will never buy Nicola Sturgeon’s book. She is nothing. She always will be nothing. She always has been nothing to me. She’s going. And I could not be more delighted about it.
Hopefully the fraud squad finally grow a spine. She’ll have to flee to her Portuguese love nest. She might have to sell it to avoid prison with Ash Regan regime change. No hard feelings Nicola.
Will membership numbers will be calculated using the same spreadsheet template that was used to account for the £600,000 Independence fund…. ?
BTW I’ve heard sturgeons stink when they go off.
The leaks are arriving The party’s ruling NEC has been told that there were 82,598 members as of December 31 2022, which means there has been a drop of 10,000 members in less than three months.Source Iain Lawson.
Ian Stewart says:
16 March, 2023 at 7:14 pm
“@ Vestas
Spot on. Trying to achieve independence in this chaos and possible corruption could be disastrous. Better to change the party leadership wholesale and improve its governance”
You’ve missed the point entirely.
The SNP are done in terms of a vehicle for independence. Over and done with.
Even were you to boot every single one of the payroll out now, the MSM/British state has enough dirt to throw at the SNP re funding/party games/conspiracy to pervert the course of justice (Salmond case) that “soft no’s” won’t believe a single word the SNP have to say for decades!
Those of us who know what happened to Salmond (and there’s a fair few of us now) aren’t going to let scum like Mr Marmalade & his wife benefit politically from perjury/conspiracy to pervert the course of justice so what do you think the British state will do if he ever becomes leader and goes for indy? Or any of the others near the top of the SNP who knew and kept silent for their own benefit?
The SNP are done in terms of independence for probably my lifetime and I’m fucking angry about that. Not for the SNP but for the kids growing up who are now stuck in the UK until they have kids of their own – at least that long!
I really hope the Murrells & their henchmen/alphabetties get what they deserve. Sadly I suspect they won’t as the UK rewards unionist corruption, not punishes it….
@Dave Sharp.
Mine and husband’s reasons for leaving the SNP in October 2019 (incidentally we were paying above the standard monthly membership fee):
1) Lack of progress on Indy;
2) Early conduct of the Alex Salmond case;
3) Trying to stop Brexit for England and Wales who voted for it, instead of getting Scotland out of UK or at least trying to get a comparable deal to Northern Ireland;
4) The proposed raft of Gender related stuff, the unpleasant people pushing it and the total lack of discipline of those doing it (I didn’t much relish being called a “Jeremy Hunt” by Mhairi Black!);
5) Appalling, and worsening treatment of Joanna Cherry.
I guess we left early to avoid the rush, before the worst of the goings on came to light. But there have been so many things since we left that made me wish I could leave again. (Mainly the malicious attempt to actually jail Alex Salmond on false charges and the ongoing smears against him, coupled with the conduct of Sturgeon, Murrell and the NEC in so many areas.)
I kissed goodbye to the SNP the day Sturgeon took over from Alex. There was something about her I couldn’t stomach. Too pushy, too me me me. I can picture her now in those television interviews literally pushing him out of the way in her effort to get into the limelight.
Didn’t think it would turn out this bad though. She’s rubbished Scotland, and sorely wounded the cause of independence. Her legacy of deceit and treachery would be carried on in the same way if Yousaf takes over. Madness prevails in the SNP now. It needs putting out of its misery, and soon.
you can imagine the conversations
– we’ve lost a ton of members, what can the reason be?
…
[thinks]
…
– well, it’s obviously NOT the policies (or the leadership, or changes to party rules)
…
– maybe, … we are not implementing our policies fast enough???
OMIGOD, YES, thats it, its so right …
… [phones Stonewall]
– DO THE 5 YEAR OLDS KNOW ABOUT FISTING YET?
NO, BUT THEY WILL SOON – it’s a tight squeeze (ooh, matron!), we have the slave trade on one side and the holocaust on the other, but we can do it – who needs “times tables” and the alphabet anyway
trebles all round, turned out nice again
[a voice at the back]
– mibbes its aboot independence being on the backburner
…
ITS TIME WE GOT RID OF ALL THESE -WHITE-RACISTS
I am trying and failing to see the problem with membership income figures, given they only go up to 2021, before the mass exodus.
I left in February 2021. It took me a while to realise the full truth of what had happened to Salmond, I had hung on hoping that the Holyrood enquiry would surface the truth and that somehow Sturgeon would either come clean or be able to show that she hadn’t engineered it all.
The evidence provided by Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon was horrendous to watch but equally bad was the SNP sycophants on the Holyrood enquiry. You know your in the wrong party when you want to rely on Murdo Fraser and Jackie Baillie to ask the right questions.
For a long time prior to that I had held my nose and voted for them believing that the gender stuff would be put on the back burner and that Independence wasn’t far away. Its hard and can take a long time to face the truth.
When I resigned I was lost and fairly demoralised but a few weeks later along came Alba and that brought back hope and I along with several thousand others joined. Quite a few of those Thousands resigned the SNP purposely to join Alba.
So when it comes to the drop in membership over the years I wouldn’t underestimate that how Alex Salmond was treated was still losing lots of members well into 2021.
My information is that the actual paid up membership as of end Feb 2023 is around 25,000. As I recall there was very little demand for attending the last SNP conference, with the payroll being prompted to turn up, and the smaller venue still not nearly full. Does anyone have any actual evidence of this 70,000 number? No. And judging by the party’s track record it is also made up. Everything the SNP elite utter is made up. Aince truist gaes oot the windae…
I think the two non-favoured candidates are right about insisting on an independent adjudicator although its really beyond time Scots asked UN agencies to intervene in the whole colonial setup / stitchup before things take a turn for the worse.
@Dave Sharp.
My reason for leaving in 2018 was speaking to a humble crofter while waiting for a takeaway in Portree and after asking him about the upcoming court case and hearing him gloat while he had that sleekit grin on his face, confirmed to me what I already knew….that they were fitting Alex up, I got home from the burger van, kicked up a stink on the Facebook group, made my feelings clear then went onto MySNP and resigned stating I didn’t agree with the fit up.
I rejoined to vote in the NEC election after being asked by the branch convener at the time, to vote for the good guys and left again when it was obvious that was the NEC and the candidate list vote was gerrymandered to allow Emma Roddick in for the Highlands , while she got less votes than a lad Tom from up north
I left after the good guys campaign had helped change the NEC then those voted off were put back in and the ones we elected frozen out. Put a bit of effort into ensuring Rhiannon Spear was not selected to stand for Argyll and Bute which turns out was a wasted effort as the one we got is little better. Also not prepared to fund the trashing of women’s rights so I walked.
I was her love of covid restrictions that did it for me, I was just glad I was out with the gender stuff started.
It is very regrettable that the SNP has declined to this extent. The problem I see is that untill relatively recentlythe party had a reasonable chance of delivering independence. There are many who have now lost their sense of a political home and at the moment no hope of a movement in the direction of independence. The other serious factor is that the SNP is now discredited and likely to lose considerable Holyrood seats and become deposed from their position at WM.My instinct is that there will be a resurgence of the three Unionist parties.I am loath to suggest the biggest winner.The greens have also lost whatever they had gained recently. It is particularly galling that the loss of a commanding position in Holyrood and in Scotland has ben brought about by mismanagement and a bunker mentality in the leadership and leading figures in the party.One lesson has to be that there is clear distance between theleader and the party executive. Sturgeon has been compromised by her relationship to the chief exec. she cannot exercise any kind of censure or discipline on her husband in the event of poor performance. This seems so obvious that I am at a loss to understand how the situation has not been addressed already.
Ash Regan interview with Andrew Marr.
She is becoming more polished.
31.30 in. Will probably need a Global player ID
link to globalplayer.com
So. Main points.
The referendum fund has been used as membership income to keep them afloat, and though there are supposedly 72000 members, 78000 ballots have been given out.
Sounds kosher.
What is truly bizarre is the BBC’s Campbell suggesting that it’s “Trumpian” to ask for honesty and integrity.
@ Alf Baird @8:28, aye thon ither forty odd thoosan’ mibbaes aw gettin tick tae keep the tally!
The discrepancy between the number of members and the number of ballots sent out is probably sufficient to mount a legal challenge. Interesting that Alf Baird puts the number of members at around 25000 rather than 72000.
I still think Regan and Forbes will let the election run and see what result is published before taking any legal action.
They have succeeded in getting Murrell to come out with a figure which will remain a millstone round his neck in future requests for information, particularly court ordered disclosure.
How lucky do the Murrells feel now?
Nicola has cut and run. If Peter still continues along the same path he’s toast. He’ll cut and run too I think and leave even more of a mess for someone to shovel up.
The continual attempts to reference American politics and culture is a big giveaway.
Trumpian, Q-Anon, Me Too… they cant help but go back to what is familiar to them even when is in entirely unfamiliar to us.
Hi Everyone.
Can I thank you all for sharing your reasons for leaving the SNP. Its clear they are robust, clear and well thought out reasons to make what I found a difficult choice.
It is this intelligent, well articulated discussion that has always been in our favour.
Truth will come out eventually..
this isn’t it.
It’s a truism (or should that be a Trumpism?) that everything Woke turns to sh*t and the SNP are no different!
Humza is morphing into Prince Philip.
link to heraldscotland.com
The Short Money
The “Voluntary” levy on politicians
The Changes to Branch HQ cash
…and much, much more
The Short money keeps the Army of the Cult employed by HQ and MPs and MSPs cheering “The Nicola”
The Black economy from shuffling Branch funds and the Politicians levy keeps ghost memberships alive.
MPs and MSPs need to tell what they know soon. The Voters are quickly catching up with the 50k who left the Party. If you want to keep your seats you had better provide some honesty instead of pretending that you think Humza is wonderful.
Merganser. Murrell will come to regret lying about the numbers. He has bought himself some time, but it will be very short.
Looking at that sad dome-shaped graph of SNP membership since 2012, I can’t help thinking:
Salmond marched us to the top of the hill,
and Sturgeon marched us down again.
Sturgeon saw herself as a new Hilary Clinton. And Independence supporters were/are her basket of deplorables.
The SNP dichotomy – if Yousef gets most votes, will the public believe a fair campaign. If he loses will all be revealed about Mr and Mrs Murrell?
And the reality – if Yousef wins prepare for a governmental administrative shambles, he simply is not able.Nor was Sturgeon, but she had 2014 thro to 2015 public goodwill following on from the Indyref campaign. Not no more, and so she is “exhausted”.
No doubt at all that Peter Murrell is toast.
If you look at last years conference save for payroll and media the conference barely attracted the attendance of 500 members. Contrast with conference numbers of 12,000 some six years ago
Contrast it also against the branches around the country where typically they cannot hold meetings that are quorate due to only four or five members in attendance. Or the phone round before the
last National Conference to try and encourage remining members to stand for election as none were coming forward.
Death and a ghost party is all around. The members have departed, left, gone and Alf Baird is probably right reporting that the paid up membership is likely to be around 25,000
Sturgeon and her lavender coloured husband have run the SNP into the absolute ground.
And it is now clear that post this leadership election there will be grounds for legal challenge. And where the members have gone, the voters will follow.
Support is still for independence but the SNP are not now, unless there is radical change, going to play any part in delivering that independence. The watershed is coming, the realignment is coming and the deadwood troughers and lard arses time is coming to an end.
Mac, I think anyone who makes derogatory reference to American politics and culture is being a bit of an arse. Here in the USA, we use private companies to provide vote-counting machinery. Counties buy the machines and the private company techs set them up, in conjunction with government employees. Tech staff are on hand on election day to deal with any issues.
However, for all that the private companies provide the technology, it is ultimately the government’s job to count the votes – in public. Anyone, anywhere in the world, can watch votes being counted in my county. After the 2020 election, it was a slow time at work for me so I watched a couple of days of the votes being tallied and the board voting on whether to accept a ballot, reject it or ask the voter for more information. The Board, not the machinery & software provider, will adjudicate on votes cast at a polling place, as well as those mailed in.
Yet here we are with an electorate that is completely anonymous, deciding who will, most likely, be the next First Minister. We are also asked to believe that there is no oversight of the process by the SNP.
I’d suggest to anyone casting aspersions on American politics to go forth and multiply, but they’d probably just get their phone out and look for the calculator app.
It’s a very sad indictment of the SNP that the party of independence has become a British stooge
Humza Yousaf. “I’m not going to lunge insults on my opponenents but…let me just lunge insults.
Humza….Where are the Men. Archived
link to archive.ph
Off topic.
I’m hearing a meme, or a theme (never too sure the difference, to be honest) and I’m hearing it again and again, from corners and people close to the movers and shakers. It goes like this…
We mustn’t have a plebiscite GE Indy election (or Holyrood), because ‘WHEN’ we win, it will provoke Westminster into saying ‘No’ and instigating Northern Ireland type violence in response.
What we should do, direct quote, from elected SNP politician (not going to reveal names, so don’t ask), is seek ‘more devolution’.
We must face up to the fact that there is a sizable chunk of the YES / SNP movement who identify as independence supporters, but when push comes to shove, are frightened of it, and would be happy to CAPITULATE in advance and settle for Devo Nowt. Such is their arrogance, they are happy to Capitulate on our behalf, without any of the bother of actually asking us before hand.
All those wasted Mandates. HOW DARE THEY.
SCOTLAND
David Hannah says:
16 March, 2023 at 7:41 pm
“I will never buy Nicola Sturgeon’s book. She is nothing. She always will be nothing. She always has been nothing to me. She’s going. And I could not be more delighted about it.”
Apart from being the biggest tractor in Scottish history you mean?
A nothing can’t do anything but this woman is pure evil.
Just look at what she did to Alex Salmond, the man to whom she owes everything for her political career.
Why would SNP members find it disgusting that candidates in an internal election might want to know how to contact their electorate?
ie imagine them making similar complaints about money spent on party political promotion literature and verbally abusing anyone that dare post it or hand deliver it when knocking doors during a council, regional, national or general election, etc.
Not sure why but I think this whole episode is actually the most interesting thing that ever happened in Holyrood.
Oh, I also enjoyed some mild politically incorrect humour today with a mate. I thought I was way back in 2014, it felt good, liberating. I know Nicola can’t actually hear what you are saying in Scotland, but something’s just relaxed a bit in the social atmosphere. I wonder if she feels a strange but equivalent lessening of power.
Things can only get better people!
It makes perfect sense if the object is to remove people with a sincere interest in the purpose of their party. Pretend you care desperately about 0.1% of the population receiving rights nobody ever heard of and suddenly, nobody’s expecting you to do Independence, ecology or anything else. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s Tory donors funding the lobby.
I reckon Alba seats are going to go way up at the next election.
Why are these people so shit at lip syncing? Truly dreadful attempt fae this fat lump.
link to twitter.com
”where are the me……mber numbers”.
o/t
I see the London Evening Standard reporting Scotland`s food and drink industry at a high of £8.1 Billion.
Daisy Walker says:
16 March, 2023 at 10:49 pm
What we should do, direct quote, from elected SNP politician (not going to reveal names, so don’t ask), is seek ‘more devolution’.
Of course, how else can they maintain their lavish lifestyles? Easy money. Don’t rock the boat. “To hell with Scotland, I’m enjoying myself too much!”. Absolute scumbags – this indy supporter won’t be voting for those fakes again any time soon.
” ……CAPITULATE in advance and settle for Devo Nowt. Such is their arrogance, they are happy to Capitulate on our behalf, without any of the bother of actually asking us before hand.”
This is where it’s always been heading since Sturgeon took over , Daisy .
Nu SNP are * transing * into New Labour : have pretty much already done so , except they’re obliged to use the word ” Independence ” every now and again .
There are simply too many careers , business/freeloading opportunities and outlets for delusional self-importance at stake to risk on something so abstract ( to them ) as Scottish Independence .
Far easier to park that irritating distraction somewhere out of sight and concentrate on the serious business of * progressive * troughing .
It may not matter that much anyway . I doubt Independence is ever going to happen via a Political Party ; at least , not on it’s own , without the full participation of a non-Party-aligned entity .
Fortunately , we have that very entity , up , running n rearing to go .
It’s called SALVO n it has a big generous Scottish heart going BOOM BOOM BOOM . Can you hear it ?
Had a thought tonight about membership of the SNP, and I have always thought it to be around 45-50k, certainly not as high as 72k, are they counting paid up members only, or paidup members and supporters in those numbers, because the supporters wouldn’t get a vote, so the perfect way to boost up numbers and get votes in the back pocket for Hazmat Useless
For me it was both the pronoun nonsense and the gerrymandering of the NEC.
More than half our branch committee resigned.
Humzas Ukranian women gaff, is as daft as going to Dundee,, to play the race card…in a city that had decades of dealings with people of colour ,through the Jute industry. He must have been off that day, Scottish industrial history was the subject, at that Hutchesons Grammar , where one is expected to push to the front in life.
Agree with Alf Baird. 25,000 sounds about right. I don’t really mind whether the SNP survive or not. It would obviously be good to have other Indy parties besides ALBA. Perhaps ISP can capitalise on those disaffected who happen to have an aversion to Alex Salmond? Maybe carve their own niche?
My only disappointment if the SNP fold completely will be if either the dirt within it avoid consequences or a significant number of the slower members and voters are lost from the cause. For both those reasons, a split in the SNP might be preferable. With much dirt exposed in the process and some pro-indy people salvaged in a rump or successor party.
Meanwhile ALBA must continue to build solidly, Salvo must be supported, Scottish culture and constitutional history must be taught and nourished. And we must realise that the strongest deterrent to being attacked is a willingness to stand up for ourselves, by all means short of violence.
Genuine environmentalists must be getting fed up too, so perhaps the Greens will also be deserted and replaced with a grassroots party, perhaps with a more clearcut pro-indy stance?
It’s worth noting that the decline in membership from Jan 20 coincides with the outcome of the Alex Salmond judicial review and the criminal case in March. Covid was kicking in around thus time, more folk had time to pay attention to both events during lockdown. Add to that the Good Guys NEC list being stymied at every turn, online pretendy conferences where the behaviour of the pack was easy to track in the chat boxes at discussion sessions, the broom cupboard plea Joanna C correctional rape threat from a member which they lied about him being a member then all the GRA nonsense then add in the Ferries, NHS Education and other Gov failings and the disgraceful enquiry into their handling of harrassment complaints….its a wonder they have members left at all.
The Quality of comments on wings has gone up considerably,and the
yoons are happy to comment here too,a huge improvement from liebor
bad, tories are detestable…! I am not worthy…
But here goes!
nicola sturgeon managed to make herself look like a political giant
by,aping Alex Salmond (even down to the posture at the podium’s during debates), making fools of a bunch of monkey’s,like davidson,rennie,dugdale,murphy,carmichael and others.
It became the nicola show,not the independence show,and for me it was
well before the disgraceful attack on mr Salmond,(which started i think when she joined the yoons in condemning his RT show),rather
than being grateful that an snp member was making some use of
broadcat media,…thats when i thought ..(what the hell is she doing)
Anyway after batting away garbage from that bunch of unionist monkey’s she eventually came to look and sound like just another monkey…that’s true is’nt it?…surprised myself there lol.
No progress!…just monkey business!
Anyway,my 2 cents,
The politicians have to be forced to deliver independence,whether
they are in the snp,alba or any other party including unionist
parties…
They have to be forced by the ordinary people of Scotland,and the way to do that is by putting the fear of god into them,
The fear of god,in the case of those scottish msp’s and mp’s is the
threat of ending up stacking shelves in tesco’s or sweeping the streets of glasgow or dundee!…You know…an honest job!
The fear of god in the case of unionist parties is losing the good will of thier next door neighbours,who are determined to live in an
independant free democratic Scotland!…They FEAR those neighbours!
The important word here is FEAR!…they do not fear the snp,they
can control and frighten and ignore the snp…thats been proved!
What they cannot control and frighten and ignore is is the uniting of everyone who believes that Scotland must put an end to this
awful uk and become an independant country,where the elected officials in Scotland are answerable only to the people of Scotland!
There is supposed to be a YES movement…if there is…start showing
it NOW!
It is not the Scottish public who sould fear!…I mean,bloody hell
are you going to wait until you’ve been told your not middle class
Your just Porridge Wogs that went to uni,now shut up and take what
your given…ie less!
Posting again!…because…at 2 hours and 27 minutes…it’s worth it!
link to youtube.com
Bernard de Linton
Every school has its failures. Maybe they sat him at the back with some nice crayons?
Wings over Scotland’s damning, forensic, insider-knowledge, crucial and brilliant articles surrounding the Sturgeon/SNP plot to fabricate the most heinous lies against the former First Minister of Scotland.
Sure, there were times prior to this that I wondered why the hell such-and-such took place – and weren’t there a load of such-and-suches? – but I remained; “Oh, they must know what they’re doing” and carried-on paying of my hard-earned to enable their criminal acts, the bastards.
However that series of WoS articles around mid-2020 was a staggering realisation that I’d been duped all along. I resigned from the Crime Syndicate around that time. What a filthy, sell-out swine Sturgeon turned out to be, eh?
Thanks for all your essential work on behalf of this country, Stu. Keep doing what you do, pal, we’ll get there.
Natal XY and proud says:
16 March, 2023 at 5:55 pm
@ottomanboi
You just referred to Scotland as a Region !!!!!
—————-
It is, both under uk and international law.
Mike Russell saying on Twitter that the party membership row will “aid our enemies”.
Well he’s right for a change. All genuine nationalists are the enemies of the Sturgeon cabal, and the membership row will aid us to consign them to Trotsky’s famous rubbish bin of history.
Hoist with his own petard!
“Scottish National Party leadership candidate Humza Yousaf, the member of Scottish Parliament who forced through the 2021 Hate Crime Act that made misgendering a potentially criminal offense, has apparently been reported to Scottish Police for a potential breach of his own law after he said trans-identified rapist Isla Bryson is “not a genuine trans woman” in a televised debate.”
link to humanevents.com
“ Republic of Scotland says at 0449 pm “ Ash Regan should bring up that it is unacceptable for GCHQ to be involved in the contest “.. The link with GCHQ & P Murrel should be further investigated . Apparently the company subcontracted by the SNP to “ issue papers& count the votes “ have a relationship with Murrel/SNP going back to 2013 ( before the referendum) . Therefore this company’s database of SNP member details ( addresses ,tel nos. , email dob’setc must be quite extensive ). It is quite probable that this company has been infiltrated by M15/ security services over the years ,and given this extensive control of the issuing of digital/ ballots , counting votes etc whether in fact the “ security services” have “ control” over the SNP voting membership and possibly have links to similar organisations “ employed” for General elections , referendums etc who may well also have been infiltrated.
The question is whether the Mr Murrel would have been aware of these possibilities and/or had direct links either knowingly or unknowingly with “ operatives”
If I was AR or KF then I would be much more comfortable with a conventional type count than a remote digital count subcontracted to these type of companies . ( links to the SNP since 2013 ??)
Without being facetious HTF is the snp membership STILL as high as 50,000-70,000 it is frightening that there are still so many stupid people who cannot see not only what is happening in front of their eyes but the FACT it is being broadcast and amplified across the world
Do these still remaining existing members actually BELIEVE that this lying perverted deviant arsehole in any way shape or form wants independence, FFS in the nine years she has been in power can any remaining member offer up examples of when she actually DONE and I mean DONE anything to promote independence, TALKING about it before elections doesn’t count
When you look at that braying hoormaistering DONKEY laughing at the absolute clusterfuck of YOUR party does it make you feel proud or will you realise that these parasites are just BLOOD SUCKERS
Re: reporting Humza to the police was a pointless act because almost all of the 2021 Hate Crime bill hasn’t come into force.
Off the top of my head, I cannot think of a criminal law offence committed by Humza against ‘that individual’ which might then be considered to be ‘aggravated by prejudice’ i.e. motivated by ‘malice or ill will’ see Section 2, Offences (Aggravation by Prejudice) (Scotland) Act 2009
That being said the police are not going to be interested in going after a politician who might have committed some minor infraction against a convicted double rapist.
“Ian Stewart says:
16 March, 2023 at 6:33 pm
Writing as someone who doesn’t support independence, you can’t possibly support independence when it could be this lot making it happen”
Independence is independence. The issue is not that the nuSNP would be making it happen it is that they aren’t.
As for thoughts of post-independence.
We are currently ruled by another country’s gang of creeps.
If the people of an independent Scotland wish to be ruled by creeps then so be it, at least it would be Scotland’s choice and our creeps.
The YES movement…(does it exist)? could bring Scotland to a halt!
The YES movement…could bring the Uk to a halt!
The Scottish working class can tell the Scottish middle class to
fuck off…any time it want’s… no more free money…smart arse!
I believe the Scottish middle class are now referring to the Scottish working class as… the POORS!…WTF
Do those fucking idiots not know where thier own families came from?
holy fuck!
P.S
After getting fucked by thatchers revolution in my teens,I have more
in my bank account than most pompus stuck up ignorant idiotic faux
english scots.
All through hard graft!…Though i still look like a tramp…lol
So watch who your talking to,mr and mrs poors! ffs.
So, are the Regan/Forbes camps happy with the response from the SNP regards membership details?
Or is there more to come?
Twathater 3.35am
“Without being facetious HTF is the snp membership STILL as high as 50,000-70,000…”
I had the exact same “HTF” moment.
Why The Fuck are there STILL more than 70,000 punters paying a membership
to the most corrupt, perverted political Party in Europe?
Absolutely unbelievable.
All I can think of for being the main reason for remaining a member of the SNP is that they have serious mental health issues.
And no, I am not going to apologise for making the previous statement, because it clearly has to be true.
Wakey fuckin wakey.
link to twitter.com
The Boss has spoken…
“There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard, But they whom the truth would indite.”
It takes decades to build a political party but days to destroy one.
A Tweet at 5pm last night which has 168k views.
Don’t lose faith in Alex, don’t lose faith in ALBA.
Vindication is coming, and hopefully Springtime to mark the end of Sturgeon’s eight years of winter.
I would say that those figures of over 70,000 people still currently paying for an SNP membership have to be seriously investigated.
Who has the proof that this is the true figure?
I’m one of thousands of women members who quit over the gender cult.
Last straw for me was the “broomcupboard” video where NS begged for a tiny number of transactivists to return to the party but the thousands of us who had left – giving our reasons to HQ – just got an “okthanksbye” email.
Also the lack of support given to Joanna Cherry when she got rape threats FROM ANOTHER SNP MEMBER.
The stables need clearing.
Yep, for all we know there are 50,000 genuine members plus 20,000 ghosts ready to cast their votes should the need arise. I think we all know who is going to win, one way or another. There’s too much at stake. I reckon the shredders have already been busy, but ye can’t hide everything. Sooner or later it all comes out. It’s the cover up that gets em in the end.
As the truth outs I note a few are still struggling to accept it. Conditioning does that and admitting you’ve been taken for a ride is hard for some.
Still clinging to the straws that poor wee Nicola and Peter have been blackmailed by MI5. It’s no their fault. A wee shame so it wis for them. If only Peter and Nicola hadn’t been corrupted by the English we’d be free.
Wait till it comes out that the SNP have been lying the whole time the Murrell/Sturgeon cabal was in power and that the membership has never been as high as they claimed. It was all part of the smoke and mirrors campaign with Angus Robertson’s rigged polls and the National’s weekly warnings that indy ref 2 was imminent, keep the Indy kettle boiling and hope it drives public opinion and the cash keeps flowing in. A political Ponzi scheme.
And here’s the real kicker, if they been lying about all of this what else have they been lying about? Everything? Is there really a case for independence anymore? Is this why sturgeon never even bothered to update the case for independence? Did she know all along it was an pipe dream that would lead to the total destruction of Scotland? Did she know that when her lies were exposed any pro yes result would be reversed the first election that came along? So many questions.
Personally I doubt sturgeon could lie straight in her bed, I’ve never seen anyone who could lie the way she does. When you watch her salmond inquiry evidence session you note her ticks and tells when she’s lying, the nodding head, the smirk, the self assured chuckle… then it clicks with you that she lies just about every time she opens her mouth… worst of it is people are still falling for it now. Her performance yesterday at FMQs and later in interviews was vomit inducing, what a piece of work.
” The fear of god,in the case of those scottish msp’s and mp’s is the threat of ending up stacking shelves in tesco’s or sweeping the streets of glasgow or dundee!…You know…an honest job! ”
C’mon now, you know fine well after selling Scotland from under our feet to the rent seekers. They will walk into nice paying jobs with these companies. They simply went all new Labour on us.
The SNP blueprint of how they have run a government – Is the book Captive State by George Monbiot.
link to monbiot.com
We have to take a large part of the blame as we all saw the economic advisors who were advising them and what Charlotte street partners were actually doing. We did nothing, when what we should have been doing is setting their building on fire and panning their windows in. It was this mob that changed the way policies were decided and then ignored at conference.
We were too soft and placed under ” all one banner ” that allowed these cancers to grow. All under one banner was designed to cancel and crush any critique of the SNP. That allowed these bunch of gangsters who were advising the SNP to run riot.
As soon as the Growth commission came out. This cancer should have been chased out of the SNP. Andrew Wilson and his bunch of economic gangsters will still be there. His ideology has to be removed from the whole independence movement even if we have to protest outside his house in our thousands. Skye bridge style.
This is the largest part of the Trojan horse that was placed at the centre of the SNP by Sturgeon. That caused a hell of a lot of damage as they made a fortune.
When Lorna Slater privatised trees under yet another PFI scheme.
She hasn’t got the brains to…..
a) Come up with that idea
b) Figure out what she actually signed.
This woman is a complete fool an idiot.
The whole thing completely stunk of Andrew Wilson and his economic think tank. They have to be hung, drawn and quartered. Out of the independence movement.
That’s where our anger has to be targeted. Or the cancer will keep spreading.
Etticus,
You claim to be a Scot who wants all the decisions made for their country by its neighbour.
Why on earth are you on here trying to convince people who want the responsibility and accountability of determining their own future to be as lazy and cowardly as you?
Presumably you believe, like most ProudScottishbuts, that making grown up decisions for yourselves is a bridge too far but please don’t underestimate the people of Scotland who are willing to take up the slack that you and your ilk have left.
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
You really should have the awareness to be ashamed of yourself.
Etticus says:
17 March, 2023 at 7:26 am
And here’s the real kicker, if they been lying about all of this what else have they been lying about? Everything? Is there really a case for independence anymore?
What a stupid thing to say. Of course there is.
Besides, how could Sturgeon lie about Independence when for eight years she could hardly bring herself to mention the “I” word unless there was an election looming?
… Did she know all along it was an pipe dream that would lead to the total destruction of Scotland?
Idiot.
Robin highlighting his view that the candidate requests were perfectly normal.
Murrell Enterprises use fake indignation to bluster the media.
I agree with Robin.
link to robinmcalpine.org
Apparently to many SNP faithful, having your membership numbers eviscerated is ‘fine’ because “ha ha, look at the Tory/labour figures”.
These numptys have a good way to fall yet. The hubris is breathtaking.
I left in 2018. Primarily due to the bullying of Joanna cherry. The young careerists who id got to know through the Indy campaign turned on her. Looked like they were trying to get brownie points. My suspicions of sturgeon grew – they’d started in 2017 election when we were told not to mention Indy. They went into orbit over the salmond stitch up then to infinity over self ID. She is a nasty fake narcissist. I tell you what, though, she would win an Oscar. Well done Wings for everything you’ve done.
@Etticus says:17 March, 2023 at 7:26 am
Careful now!
Defo a lot of pennies dropping right now, but best ration them a few at a time.
Nobody likes to be hit by a tsunami of pennies all at once.
Humza asked a group of Ukrainian women “Where are all the men?”
He needs a new coach.
Beyond belief he’s a contender.
@john main
Yup, I saw her coming a mile off, haven’t voted SNP since Salmond gave up the leadership. I always knew she was a disaster in waiting tho it wasn’t until I sat through her evidence session at the Salmond inquiry that I realised just how much of a piece of work she was.
A number of folks such as breastplate and breeks are still at the denial stage of grief, iirc they both voted SNP last election in the full knowledge of what Sturgeon had done and knowing that the best option for Scotland was her being removed from power and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I expect it will be a long time, if ever, before they fully accept their part in this sorry tale. Tbh I don’t hold any animosity towards them, they are the victims of this piece.
They seem to have very short memories, sturgeon mentioned independence every chance she had, it was part of the Indy ref 2 cup and ball trick to divert from the incompetent corrupt bin fire that was her government. Every time sturgeon faced a bit of scrutiny the SNP spin machine jumped into action, listing polls, increased membership, instructing the national to do another exclusive about “Indy ref 2”. Furthermore sturgeons bag man fat Blackford ranted about it every week at PMQs.
“Is there really a case for independence anymore? ”
Etticus.
You sneaked that wee BS line there, no real indy supporter would do that, real indy supporters know that there will always be a case for indy, and we need it more than ever now.
There’s no case for the union.
Is anyone else worried that democracy in this county is akin to some rogue African state?
The more I see and hear convinces me how thick the population at large is.
We live in an Idiocracy for sure.
@republicofscotland
Salmond had a case; sturgeon has never updated that case and even with the help of her army of 50+ spin doctors and Charlotte st partners and the rest every one of her “papers” have been exposed as embarrassing nonsense. BS like the well-being economy, LOL. Why? Because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. That’s the facts whether you like or not.
I hope you aren’t a bit sore bcos you voted for her as well.
@Etticus says:17 March, 2023 at 8:50 am
Only last year I was talking to a committed SNP supporter about the implications of the attempt to frame AS.
He countered by telling me how impressed he had been by NS during the Covid years, and how well she had come across at the presentations and daily briefings.
“A real stateswoman”.
I gently asked him if he thought it possible that any competent actress could play the part of a politician standing at a podium, reading a script, and answering pre-agreed questions, and thus also come across as a real stateswoman.
Subject swiftly changed!
[Not a question that I can repeat in 2023, without first clarifying I mean a real woman real stateswoman, plus, I now have to use gender-neutral “actor”, not “actress”. Thanks be to NS for these improvements to Scottish life.]
We donated to the Independence fund and to be honest if Sturgeon had held the Referendum on 19.10.23 I wouldn’t have been bothered about the money.
She and the SNP has taken us all for idiots she set up this special conference and then decided to leave why? Then the SNP held this leadership election to deny the SNP having that special conference in march, once again taken us all for idiots, I hope the party collapses unless Ash Regan is elected but no I would never leave Alba to join the SNP.
I stayed in England so I didn’t get a vote in 2014 but we came up to the Edinburgh for grand tour of Nicola, on the way back to England both my wife and myself said Sturgeon had no intention of continuing the momentum for Independence, her words were we had a referendum and we lost we now need to focus on the next Westminster election in the back of the room a young boy aged 15 stood and asked why we couldn’t have another referendum and she said we did and lost, now I can’t speak for anyone who went to Glasgow but I can speak as I was at the Edinburgh event even then she was closing down the idea of another referendum if an individual was prepared to listen to what she was actually saying, I was so upset because I felt the momentum should have continued.
That video at the end with Hosie is priceless. The way he uses his hands and his overall posture suggests to me he has been coached.
1. He keeps his hands on what is called “the sweet spot”, (area between hips and shoulders). At points, when he spontaneously outstreches his hands towards the panel his attempts to keep the hands within that zone look forced.
2. He uses the lowered steeple as default position. If spontaneous, this is meant to be a power, active listening position. When used spontaneously, this gesture conveys confidence, knowledge and cooperative attitude.
There appears to be a clash between what the steeple gesture is meant to convey and the way he speaks and even laughs (fakely) which clearly shows total lack of cooperativeness, a forced attempt to rubbish the whole thing and an urgency to close down as soon as possible that line of questioning.
3. He held his open palm outstretched towards the panel. Spontaneously this would convey honesty and integrity. However this completely clashes with his verbal language which clearly attempts to convey the opposite of honesty and integrity when using the word “trumpian” to quickly dismiss a perfectly valid claim.
4. There is some rigidity in his body posture which suggests he is uncomfortable and trying very hard to convince.
While his hand gestures attempt to portray an image of calmness, power and cooperativenes, they are betrayed by his unmeasured verbal response and the obviously fake, forced laughter at the end.
Contrary to his rehearsed hand gestures, his verbal language reflects nervousness and discomfort.
He seems able to control his hand gestures but during that performance, he did not look like he could keep the same level of control over his hands gestures, plus his verbal language responses, plus his non verbal language (fake laugher) all at the same time.
The impression I get from his performance is that, despite all the coaching, he still cannot hide his huge discomfort at the situation.
He might have been asked to close down that line of enquiry and even told how to do it to sound convincing (using the “trumpian” word and the fake laughter clearly come across as instructions). However, judging by the apparent mistmatch between verbal and non verbal language, I am not convinced on the least this man actually thought such intervention was the right course of action.
John Main,
If you actually paid attention to what people say you would know you were talking nonsense.
I’ve stated many times on here that I couldn’t care less if the Devil himself delivers independence, as long as Scotland is back in its rightful place of the international community.
It doesn’t matter to me what politicians are in charge of the drive towards self determination, they have a job to do and if they don’t do it, they should be removed.
I don’t hold Westminster politicians in any more regard than other politicians as you do, I’m not the person here who is delusional about where my country’s decisions should be made.
Etticus, like you, is a Unionist, the only difference is, he knows it.
There has only ever been one functioning member of the SNP in recent times.
The Great Procrastinator is «resigning» so what now?
A return to fully participatory, pro active democracy with accountable leadership?
No more just talking about independence?
Get down and dirty and do the action.
Scotland EXPECTS!
@ Republicofscotland says:17 March, 2023 at 8:51 am
Of course there is a case for the union, just as there is a case for Indy.
The question is unchanged from what it always was: Is the case for Indy better than the case for the union?
You can deny it all you want, but the case for Indy is damaged by having a bunch of incompetent, corrupt, minorities-courting, fearties at the top of the Scottish political greasy pole.
It’s a see-saw. If Indy support goes down, union support goes up.
We are not all rabid Indy-at-any-cost, even if it means living in a cave and eating insects, nutters on here. All we ever wanted was solid, unarguable evidence for why Indy would be better for us.
“Us” being the majority of small ‘c’ conservative, fiscally careful, responsible and hard-working Scots.
TBQH, sick and fucking tired of having to point this out.
@AndyH says:17 March, 2023 at 9:05 am
Is anyone else worried that democracy in this county is akin to some rogue African state?
Wacism!
Couldn’t resist getting in first.
There will be a pile on of other posters along in a mo to call Andy out on that …
… any minute now …
@Breastplate says:17 March, 2023 at 9:24 am
Etticus, like you, is a Unionist, the only difference is, he knows it.
Naw, I’m a pragmatist, and a democrat.
Which is why I hope AR gets the FM gig.
I hope she goes down the plebiscitary election route.
As a democrat, I hope Scotland will decide one way or the other at the election(s), and lance this boil once and for all.
As for how I will vote in AR’s first plebiscitary election, it will depend on her and her government’s policies, credibility, plausibility, and engagement with democratic principles and wider reality.
For example, no “a vote for Indy is a vote for the EU” shite.
Soz if this pragmatic approach offends your delicate sense of ideological purity.
But not soz. I believe I share the views of the majority of Scots, these people you like to co-opt as us Sovereign Scots, but only when it suits you.
BREASTPLATE. 9:24
Scotland needs its Machiavelli, prepared to sup with the Devil, ready to embrace the enemy of the enemy and never passing up an opportunity to inflict injury.
No more reasonable guy stuff.
Is there a secret to reading RobinMcAlpine.org blog posts from links on here?. It just keeps hanging up on me.
There was a real surge in membership post 2014 as I think a lot of people (myself included) felt it was a way to send the message that this is not over and we are not giving up… a bit of a futile gesture really but it helped at the time.
I recall at the time Peter Murrell was tweeting out the membership numbers every day or so as it went up. (Not so many tweets as it went down I note Peter.)
I was expecting to see the membership peak quite early after 2014 and then steadily decline as that anger gradually ‘wore off’.
But interestingly it is not like that at all. The membership held and plateaued at around the 125k mark up until as recently as 2020 it looks like.
So you cannot explain this decline away as the post 2014 surge gradually ebbing over time. This decline is something much more recent and much more serious.
I am trying to think of the profile of SNP members who are likely to have left since 2020… and also the profile of those who are likely to have remained.
@breastplate
“I couldn’t care less if the Devil himself delivers independence”
Thats why Sturgeon saw you coming a mile off, why make a case when people like you don’t care.
“Is there really a case for independence anymore?”
Of course there is;
“We, the sovereign people of Scotland, sovereignly wish to resume the independence of our sovereignty, ourselves, our country, our nation and our kingdom.”
That’s a solid case right there.
Breeks @6:12 am
Quite – and if you accept the premise that members were lost due to man flu then there is argument that those with enough influence to frighten the Queen over it were able to use Nicola’s compassion against her, despite her knowing the damage it was doing to the SNP.
In the alternative, and the party was able to hide its losses until now, its actions can perhaps be excused in part* by the acts of a loving husband protecting his wife being distracted from the increasingly difficult dayjob. ie lending confidence to a general public in dismay at the relative insanity the (ahem) science managed to provoke in Canada, Australia, China, Russia, Europe and elsewhere.
*Launching Yousaff as lamb to slaughter on other hand..
Wonder if the snp auditors, who have signed off the accounts, will be seeking clarification from the party /CEO?
A nation being an independent and sovereign state is simply a natural situation. You don’t have to make a pleading and detailed case for it.
If you do get bogged down in minutiae whilst making a case then that very much suits the colonial power, since it makes independence supporters look like supplicants. The two year long campaign and the voluminous SG white paper for the 2014 vote did not serve Yes well.
It’s a case of tapping into Scots’ aspirations for freedom for the country. Not of pompously ‘making a case’.
“Is there really a case for independence anymore? ”
Yes there is. Bigger than ever. It is precisely because there is a huge case for independence that this has happened to the SNP.
What we see here, and what we have seen since Sturgeon took over back in 2014, is a desperate attempt by the powers that be to thwart independence through
1. hijacking the SNP, forever destroying it from within as a vehicle for independence, and
2. to remove from any position of power or influence, any potential pro-independence leader which could lead that sNP MP majority to deliver independence.
The attacks on Mr Salmond and Ms Cherry were no coincidence. Those are the two most capable and knowlegeable pro-independence people to lead Scotland to independence, but they both have been ring-fenced. Any of them would run rings around the political fake Sturgeon.
I think the powers that be have succeeded with the help of Sturgeon and Murrell in their quest to destroy the SNP as a vehicle for independence. It is now just a shell. The only thing of value it has left is the brand and that has now forever been tarnished by these lying charlatans.
I do not believe for a second that 70,186 figure as the real number of ACTIVE members with a right to vote. I suspect the real number is much, much lower than that and that figure is just a compromise so they could buy enough time for the leadership contest to continue.
I am of the opinion that figure already encompasses a large cushion number of enough ghost voters to coronate Yousaf. A more realistic reflection of the membership will be the number of votes cast. But that can only be obtained by an honest, independent auditor. Who is going to believe SNP HQ when they and all the careerists and troughers have a favourite candidate and have not made any attempt whatsoever to hide it?
That this political fraud emerged as leader right at the time Mr Salmond had managed to put yes ahead on the polls and there were predictions of an SNP landslide in the next GE, is not a coincidence.
That this political fraud declared a vote for the SNP was not a vote for independence or even a referendum precisely at that time is not coincidence either.
That this political fraud heavily undersold the first SNP majority in Westminter by including in her first manifesto as leader something of so little ambition as “Full Fiscal Responsibility”, which effectively meant the watered down version of the vow agreed by labour and tories, was no coincidence.
This woman, as leader, never pursued independence nor she ever intended to. She was pursuing something, alright, but more in the lines of devolution than independence. We haven’t seen this delivered yet, but I suspect their current attempts to push Yousaf to become the leader and effectively rendering the party unelectable to open the gates for labour to take their seats, have an awful lot to to with this. They are aware their credibility is gone and they are too tired to continue lying convincingly.
Sturgeon may have used our anti-union majorities and the prospect of a referendum as a weapon to bring the British state to the negotiating table to achieve whatever it is she wanted to achieve, but it is clear as day when you look retrospectively at her speeches and actions, that she never had even the most remote intention of delivering indyref, never mind independence.
Until her capitulation speech, all what she was seeking was a compromise. Considering the content of her capitulation speech and the way she betrayed the voters, less than 2 months after the GE, it was clear beyond doubt at that point she had achieved what she was looking for.
From then on, it was all a matter of keeping the charade going by dangling indyref carrots while handing vetos to the crown and Westminster, and ultimately distracting us all with her gender crap and actively destroying what was left of the SNP.
We were sold, that bit is beyond doubt. What it is no so clear is what this fraud sold us in exchange of and when. My suspicion is that she did the dirty deeds at some point in 2016, starting around the time May came to Scotland (July 2016). At that point we heard things like these (from TMay):
“The Prime Minister will also affirm the government’s commitment to fully engaging with the Scottish Government in the forthcoming negotiations about the UK’s exit from the European Union”
“I believe with all my heart in the United Kingdom – the precious bond between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This visit to Scotland is my first as Prime Minister and I’m coming here to show my commitment to preserving this special union that has endured for centuries”
“And I want to say something else to the people of Scotland too: the government I lead will always be on your side. Every decision we take, every policy we take forward, we will stand up for you and your family – not the rich, the mighty or the powerful”
“That’s because I believe in a union, not just between the nations of the United Kingdom, but between all of our citizens. Whether it’s reforming the economy or strengthening our society, we are going to build a better Britain and a nation that works for everyone – not just the privileged few”
These quotes from TMay are from July 2016, just after the EU ref had put Scotland and England on a constitutional clash route. Scotland had just delivered a mandate to hold a referendum should brexit happened. At this point, Sturgeon still had 56 anti-union MPs in Westminster and controlled the largest share of the seats in Holyrood. At that time, the majority of the MSPs supported remaining in the EU. At this point, Sturgeon was at her strongest negotiation position and May at her weakest. This was the most critical point for the survival of the union. And yet, the union survived.
May’s quotes tell us something very clearly: May (and the powers that be) knew very well there was a massive case for independence and a real threat not of Scotland’s secession, but a threat to survival of the Treaty of Union. This is because brexit was an irrefutable change in circumstances compared to those where the 2014 vote took place. A change in circumstances is a perfectly valid reason under international law to unilaterally end a treaty.
Sturgeon, as FM of Scotland, could have communicated to the UN Scotland’s intention to revoke the treaty at that point and ask for their arbitration of the process in anticipation of hostility form our treaty partner.
If we are not independent today, never mind not having had a referendum, it is simply because Sturgeon CHOSE not to pursue that route, because she never intended to pursue that route and had something else in mind.
I am of the opinion, whatever it is she wanted to negotiate with the British state, she started negotiating it at that point in time because it is the point in time when Sturgeon was at her strongest position. I interpret the wording from May as a green light for the negotiations to start. There is a big change in the political fraud’s narrative between that point in 2016 and early 2017 onwards.
I am also of the opinion that the GE2017 was called to take wind from Sturgeon’s sails and to remove Mr Salmond from Westminter. I do not believe for a second it was to give the tories a stronger mandate for brexit. When the survival of the Treaty of Union itself was at stake should brexit go ahead, a tory majority to deliver brexit was clearly not the priority. The priority was to decrease the SNP majority to protect the treaty.
The question for me that remains to be answered is how far has this political fraud been prepared to go when lying to us. For instance, did she know already she was never going to pursue indyref at the time the indyref crowdfund was launched?
The crowdfunding for indyref started on the 13 March 2017. May’s olive branch was extended in July 2016.
Sturgeon, like most of those who now are trying to close down scrutiny over the matter of the membership and this charade of leadership contest, are nothing but political frauds who have abused our pro-independence votes to preserve the UK and their own bank accounts.
Sturgeon has been deceiving us and lying to us in our faces for 8 years. Her last intervention to claim she does not know what the problem with the leadership contest is another lie which, this time, betrays her carefully built PR facade. This is because in her quest to continue lying and presenting a fake picture of calmness and coolness, she has lowered her guard.
As a leader in control of her party and brief, she MUST know
ALL what is happening in the party at ALL TIMES, and it is not like these questions started overnight. A leadership contest is not some random toilet cubicle gossip gathering. Is a huge thing. So there is only one reasonable conclusion here from her “intervention”:
Either Sturgeon is blatantly lying again to our faces or she is totally useless as a leader who is not in control of her leadership brief. If this is the case, then it can only mean that somebody/something else has been acting as leader of the SNP for the last 8 years.
In that case, why would anybody want to waste time and effort speaking to the monkey when they could be speaking to the organ grinder?
So, the SNP tanks at the next election, where does that leave us – unless the other Indy parties take up the slack, we may get the yoonies back, then say goodbye to all the supposed benefits we have gained over the years – at least our free prescriptions, further education, bedroom tax relief etc. Surely that can’t happen, but it just might.
Etticus,
You have admitted with your own words that you lack the wit and gumption to make your own decisions.
Why do you believe, like you, the people of Scotland shouldn’t make their own decisions?
Do you actually have a coherent reason/excuse?
@Beauvais 10:25am
Exactly. Well said. It’s why continuing to send pro independence MPs to Westminster is so wrong. It only lends legitimacy to English rule over Scotland. Treat Westminster and the so-called united kingdom as sick jokes because that’s exactly what they are.
Independence by all and every means.
Lol, the pretendy Indy supporters are getting a bit over excited.
Mitigating the worst aspects of English rule only prolongs the so-called united kingdom. “To mitigate is to collaborate”.
Maybe something good will come from all this mess
I’ve always had it in my head that the swing to the left of the SNP was good for picking up the votes of Labour types but it isolated a lot of Indy minded ‘fiscally aware’ types.
Maybe two separate parties, one left and one right of center is how it needs to be to win in the end.
As long as it squeezes out the Creepy Greens and the Yoons from the list votes.
In the past couple of days, I’ve heard one bloke called John Swinney assert, adamantly, that he has no knowledge of how the process works, and no way to obtain it.
And another bloke called John Swinney assert, adamantly, that the process is 100% robust, secure and fair.
Has anyone ever seen these two Johns in the same room together?
A dozen of the Cult suggest they will leave the SNP and Sturgeon rushed to the broom cupboard to make her famous plea.
50,000 long term members with decades of membership actually leave and she ignores it. In fact she hides it.
If the remaining members think that is normal then they are not supporters of Independence.
The Unionist don’t need big memberships! The Union is holding the ground. We needed those numbers to drive Independence.
Enjoy looking at your Selfie with Nicola as you remain in the Union.
@breastplate
I haven’t anything of the sort.
Instead I’ve just pointed out that here you are on a website run by someone who told you what would happen if you voted for Nicola sturgeon, you ignored him and voted for Nicola sturgeon and now for some odd reason you can’t seem to work out why things have turned out the way they have nor do you want to take any responsibility for the situation we now find ourselves in.
That right there demonstrates a lack of wit and gumption.
Doug @10:36
Totally agree with you that pro-indy MPs should not sit in the Commons. What can they do there anyway except, as you say, lend legitimacy to our subaltern status under the union.
Craig Murray on Twitter regarding Humza.
I am told he has been assured by Jacksons Entry he now has enough votes. There is a celebration drinks arranged for Merchant City tomorrow for his team.
JockMcT…
“, then say goodbye to all the supposed benefits we have gained over the years – at least our free prescriptions, further education, bedroom tax relief etc. Surely that can’t happen, but it just might.”
Might be what’s needed to get the rest of the country to wake up to the real world benefits of “Better Together”.
Sturgeon’s rancid SNP hasn’t moved the swingometer an inch in the right direction despite the shit-show over Brexit and Boris and Truss and tanking economy etc. In reality, the SNP have utterly failed to further the cause of Indy in 8 years.
If you’ve got any other ideas other than a spell in the wilderness for the pretendy party of Indy, combined with life under a Yoon regime in Vichy Scotland to concentrate the minds of the population and increase support for Indy, I’d be delighted to hear it.
Etticus,
If you had been paying any attention at all, you would have realised that you’re on the wrong independence site with your claptrap.
I understand that it’s much easier for you to stamp your feet like an upset toddler than to address the questions that have been asked of you.
Accept what you are, Etticus, that will allow you to, one day, be able to look in the mirror.
Green vote collapses. Snp hardly shift. Tory win. link to thenational.scot
Humza: “Where are all the men?” .
Answer: A few are in the womens toilets, thanks to you and Sturgeon.
@One_Scot says:17 March, 2023 at 10:36 am
Lol, the pretendy Indy supporters are getting a bit over excited.
Zat so?
I haven’t noticed any posts from SNP politicians, ScotGov ministers, etc. etc.
These peeps are the true pretendy Indy supporters.
It’s peeps like you that still won’t own what you did by putting these numpties in positions where they could royally fuck over Scots of every persuasion.
Cos that’s where we are with the ferries and other infrastructure shambles, the corrupt fiscal scandals, the collapsed SNHS, the micro-managed thought crimes, the Covid over-reaction, the prioritisation of minorities over decent, ordinary Scots, the selling for a pittance of our kid’s national energy inheritance, etc. etc.
Royally fucked over.
Never mind, eh? Open wide and take your carrot. Look, it’s got a saltire on it.
We are only trapped in the Union because the SNP haven’t used the mandate the people have given them. We did not give them a mandate to plead with Westminster. We gave them a mandate to act.
It is because we are pleading with Westminster, that this has become a trap. They have got us right where they want us. We need to break out of this mindset that Westminster can veto our nation.
They can’t veto any nation. A nation must assert itself before it can break free. We need a leader willing to do the heavy lifting. A leader with a thick skin , determination and courage. Please come back Mr Salmond!
“the SNP tanks at the next election, where does that leave us”
At the exact place the British state has been desperately trying to send Scotland back since 19 September 2014.
It is my view Sturgeon has been deliberately destroying the SNP to neuter it with this precise purpose since 2017. Presumably because by that point she had got the British state to agree to whatever it is she was seeking.
In my opinion, she has asked for some form of extended devolution in exchange for not having a referendum, never mind ending the treaty. Hence their ideations of a labour government.
FFA was rejected rather point blank around July 2015, so it cannot be that. It is just too much of a coincidence that around that time, there were not-unsignificant rumbings about federalism (several think tanks) and a new Act of Union (Act Of Union Bill 2016, HL), precisely at the time Sturgeon was at her strongest negotiating position.
More recently we have heard noises around Labour’s, yet again, constitutional proposals to “settle the future of the union” (2020) which of course include more useless devolution.
In my opinion they have been, since 2017, trying to find a convenient time when to deliver whatever devolution it is she negotiated. But for this to happen, Labour needs to be in power. Labour are, at the end of the day, the official party of devolution and the never ending constitutional reforms. Tories would alienate their voting base in England if they dared to be seen as delivering more devolution. But Labour cannot just be in n10. For these reforms to be accepted, Labour has to be seen to credibly speak on behalf of Scotland. They can hardly do this with ONE meagre MP.
This is when watering down the SNP constitution, deliberatly making the SNP unelectable and transforming it into a cheap copycat of New Labour comes in handy. The transfer of votes to labour once the SNP is conveniently tarnished with some scandal will be easier that way.
“we may get the yoonies back”
We will get the yoonies back because this has been the objective of making the SNP unelectable.
We have two options:
1. either vote for an alternative pro-indy party if available, or
2. we spoil our ballots in masse including in them our preferred option (independence)
Meanwhile, we support organisations like SALVO which is an apolitical movement formed from grassroots to pursue independence through an alternative route.
“Then say goodbye to all the supposed benefits we have gained over the years”
These are not “benefits” for the people of Scotland. They are simply a strategy to mitigate the policies designed with England in mind to make them more palatable for Scotland and ensure the union remains governable. This is what Sturgeon has been doing for 8 years: mitigating the toxicity from Westminster to avoid the pursuit of independence. She has not been working for Scotland, but rather for the benefit of the union.
To be honest, I very much doubt they will be stupid enough to touch that. If they do the demands for independence would rise even further. They want to demonstrate Scotland and England can be governed together. Removing that mitigation would prove the precise opposite.
@ Lenny Hartley
Yousaf’s odds on the betting exchange* continue to shorten. He is such a red-hot favourite that you’d have to place £4 on him to win just £1, while you can get 3 to 1 against a Forbes victory and Regan is a no-hoper at 50 to 1.
So, there you have it: some folks are prepared to take long odds on Yousaf to win, no one is taking the increasingly generous odds offered against a Forbes or Regan win, or the hard-headed bookies are making the right interpretations as events unfold during this ‘process’.
* The betting exchange odds only vary when money is placed or there are external considerations which might influence the outcome. The market is extremely weak and there is no possibility of large bets being placed at these odds.
Geoff Anderson says:
17 March, 2023 at 10:45 am
A dozen of the Cult suggest they will leave the SNP and Sturgeon rushed to the broom cupboard to make her famous plea.?50,000 long term members with decades of membership actually leave and she ignores it. In factshe hides it.
===========
I think you miss the point about what this reveals about Sturgeon’s priorities.
The first case affords NS and her SPAD/megaphones the opportunity to virtue-signal, amplify and broadcast her“progressive” credentials to the international audience she hopes will feather her new nest.
The second?
In the same terms it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Geoff Anderson says:
17 March, 2023 at 10:45 am
A dozen of the Cult suggest they will leave the SNP and Sturgeon rushed to the broom cupboard to make her famous plea.?50,000 long term members with decades of membership actually leave and she ignores it. In factshe hides it.
===========
I think you miss the point about what this reveals about Sturgeon’s priorities.
The first case affords NS and her SPAD/megaphones the opportunity to virtue-signal, amplify and broadcast her“progressive” credentials to the international audience she hopes will feather her new nest.
The second?
In the same terms it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Lol, “Zat so?”
Yup.
@Breastplate says:17 March, 2023 at 11:11 am
you’re on the wrong independence site with your claptrap
Naw.
Not your call to make, BP.
Trying to cancel posters, rather than deal with their arguments?
Not a good look, BP.
Fit ye feart o?
Correct Mia, and not forgetting the TMays message on the NS resignation
“We disagree on many issues but I’d like to thank you Nicola Sturgeon for your long, tireless service to our country & for the professional relationship we maintained as leaders. I can assure you that there is plenty of scope to contribute from the backbenches.
And those benches can only be one place! The HoL.
So, what money on Nicola Sturgeon joining the ultimo boob bunny in the House of Lords?
“I am told he has been assured by Jacksons Entry he (Humza) now has enough votes”
After reading this, less than 24 hours after a conveniently large membership figure was released, FOUR DAYS after the election started, to appease 2 of the three candidates and an increasingly unsettled and suspicious public, I am now convinced the 72,186 figure included sufficient cushion ghost votes to catapult Yousaf to the leader position.
I am afraid I don’t trust that leadership context at all and will therefore never see Yousaf as the legitimate SNP leader, never mind FM, should they declare him officially to be so. I will see him as a puppet undemocratically parachuted to the post, just like Robertson was parachuted to the MSP candidate post by actively, forcefully and undemocratically pushing Ms Cherry away.
@Terry says:17 March, 2023 at 11:14 am
Turnout 38.1%
Voters who don’t give a shit outnumber voters who do by 3 to 2.
There’s the constituency for Indy right there. Work out a strategy to engage the 60% of voters who didn’t give a shit to vote for Scotland’s Indy future.
Then again, you can just deploy the ‘Y’ word and then you can safely stay behind your keyboards, anonymously gurning away til you die.
Mia on that point “the SNP tanks at the next election, where does that leave us”
At the exact place the British state has been desperately trying to send Scotland back since 19 September 2014. While that looks to be a realistic almost achieved aim. There is this.
The be careful what you wish for – because you need to take what goes with it. Meaning the current clusterfuck that is/was the Queen Nicola to Humza Yousaf coronation. What is going with that?
A potential Kate Forbes and FM Ash Regan succeeding Nicola Sturgeon – and one almighty clear out – that will require the entire YesMovement to think again. Not give up. Think again. The very thing the British state desperately do not want!
I have believed in Independence for years and by that I mean Scotland becoming an independent country, not just independence from England, but a country which controls its own laws and borders. I was strongly in favour of the United kingdom leaving the EU as their courts overturned or negated our laws and immigration policy.
I still believe Independence would be good for Scotland and its people, but at the same time realise that the “Scottish People” of today are very different in character and ethnicity from the people with whom I grew up and laboured.
Now I look at our institutions and educational services with disgust, I look at our population and our leaders with disgust and think what spoiled children. We are a nation of victims, not through any devious actions of England or the Westminster parliament, but by ourselves. We feel a sense of entitlement to a lifestyle that our parents couldn’t even dream of, our young people resent the idea of having “working hands” as if they are a sign of idiocy, in my case my battered and calloused hands are my proudest possessions, as I know what they mean, what they have produced and the lives that have been affected for the better in every scar and ridge.
We seem to have learned how to work the system “on the sick” now taking the place of “on the bru” for the work shy. Is there any real National Pride left in this country, or are just part of the media induced wonderland where we never have to account for our actions, family is no longer our guiding light and we live our lives inside proscribed limits.
All in all the way forward will be difficult, what was achievable twenty years ago is no longer so, I had hoped for inspiration from Scottish Nationalism, but I’m beginning to think that the feelings as a working man that led me to Socialism and the cold splash of reality in later life which made me a conservative no longer reside in the hearts of our populace and the powers of darkness have won the battle for our souls. Please prove me wrong.
John Main,
I’m sorry if this continues to bamboozle you but this site has been hyper critical of Sturgeon and Nicophants for a number of years.
Your soulmate, Etticus has clearly identified this site as harbouring members of the cult and is quite clearly wrong, not only about this but about a number of things and by extension, so are you.
I wonder how much of the £600k is being placed on Yousaf at the Bookies to “Shore Up” the accounts?
robertkknight Yes you are right of course, I agree, a spell with them back in charge is no worse than the current charade, and might wake a few folks up.
Mia – thanks for your insights here also and yes you are also correct, they shouldn’t dare piss us off further. I wonder if they are astute enough to know that. Heel on throat has always been their way. I agree with you re the numbers 72k is probably twice the real number, so Hummer should win by a landslide.. or if even close enough – give him just over half and divi the rest between the girls.
Like you, I have no faith in this process, but they are duty bound to follow-through. The state dictates that HY must win, and the dust will settle – on the rotting corpse of the SNP.
Salvo/Liberation.scot has to be the way forward now.
It stuck in my craw to mention the “benefits” and as you rightly say, they aren’t really – simply a cost of getting what they want in the union ledger. I wish we weren’t so colonised and ultimately too wee, too poor and too stupid. The sheep will look up and go back to grazing for a while, and that gives them the advantage. We shall prevail but we have to learn from these events and up our collective game.
Sometimes it is useful to think outside the box. Not just to talk to people like you or read articles which confirm your views. I am a Scot (by ancestry, by birth and culturally). I celebrate Burns Night; my book case is piled high with books on Scottish history and literature; a Scots/English Dictionary is on my desk (looked up pauchle yesterday); I have yomped all around Scotland. I am also a Tory, a Unionist and have lived in England for 40 years with an English husband of part Irish/Scottish ancestry. Think of me as the little bit of grit in your oyster shell which will help you to create a pearl.
This is meant as a helpful comment to those of you who seek independence. How do all the Tartan Tories, i.e. independence supporters but with Conservative/conservative values vote now? I knew loads and loads when I was at a Scottish University in the late 1970s. The SNP used to be a broad church politically, but since devolution has drifted to the left and recently adopted ‘progressive’ policies (dictated by the sexual fetishists and extremists in the Green Party). Tories have been demonised by the Sturgeon (“I hate Tories”), Humza (“We must rid Scotland of Tories”) and other party big wigs. Blamed for every wrong in the country, even matters devolved for 20 plus years. Oh an independent Scotland will be rid of Tories forever. i.e. a permanent left wing governance which sounds a tad totalitarian to me. Will these Tartan Tories, though emotionally committed to independence not feel a bit scared of their future in an independent country? Should the new (I hope) leadership not adopt a more conciliatory welcoming stance to C/conservative inclined voters who might support YES in order to get the independence vote over 50% if they were not treated as political pariahs.
Ditto a more conciliatory line to the English. As a nation we have intermingled with the English for hundreds of years (see my husband’s ancestry (GGM from Inverness, has a Grant cummerbund and tie). Lots of us Scots like the English and England and love our English partners and children. I was appalled by the guys at the border during lockdown who told the English to “Go home”. I love Burns and Shakespeare, Landseer and Constable, the Hebrides and Dorset, Rab C. Nebitt and Only Fools and Horses, haggis and jellied eels. I want my husband and I to feel welcome in the country of my birth whether Just visiting or living there permanently. Although no problem with Scottish friends and family, I don’t get that vibe from the current SNP Party. If living in Scotland permanently I would like to think that there might be a Scottish Conservative Government one day.
Just food for thought – Tories got 25% of the vote at the last SP election. Silly to dub them deplorables. Did not help Clinton.
Thanks for that Pearl. Very thought provoking, please continue to comment.
@LondonScot
I’m more or less the same as you – Scot unionist, living in England for 40 years, but with English family.
You make a good point about the need for a broad church if the Independence vote is to be won – not just left of centre but right of centre voters too. But for years the SNP has demonised those who voted Tory in Scotland but may actually be potential independence supporters. And the racist dog whistle statements from the SNP doesn’t win over open minded Scottish voters either, but merely wins the vote of bigots who’d vote for Independence anyway (for all the wrong reasons). Salmond had the tone largely right – jabbing at the English of course but he was actually quite respected in England too.
As Akenaton and Londonscot point out the coalition for independence has been undernined by its narrowness. It reflects while strands of f thought which would enrich and engage Scotland. Not just conservatism but class-based socialism. It has been corroded by infantile student politics, low- wattage careerist numpties and divisive identity based grifters. They have been aided and abetted by Globalists and Davos dupes and a breed if mediocre bureaucrats who love to control and corral the population. They are personified by Sturgeon. It callow cult of the environment which becomes anti-progress and a fixation on youth. When an uneducated, unaccredited numbskull is appointed as Head of Policy Development, you know that they care nothing for policy. When lying grifters can clain disability slots in candidate selection on the basis of being unhinged and cognitively challenged you know that movement is doomed. The Ceaucescus and their gauleiters have both left the building we need to put them to a metaphorical firing squad.
Hubby’s DD was cancelled Aug 2022. Neither of us cancelled it. It had auto renewed since 2013. I’ve heard others say same. I was never a member, I lent my vote as did thousands in run up to 2014 then after as backlash to The Vow. Votes mattered more than membership. Who is cancelling DDs en masse? Not that I intend to start a new DD for hubby..it came out of my account anyway!