Those To Blame
The SNP have been pretty clear about the reason they think they got a battering in last week’s election: it was because people were voting to kick out the Tories.
Now, that’s obviously nonsense. There were almost no Tories in Scotland to start with – just 10% of voters had a Tory MP – and only one of the six actually lost his seat. (Which was entirely down to the ham-fisted interference of Douglas Ross rather than an SNP surge – the SNP’s vote share in the seat in question went DOWN.)
If you wanted to keep Tories out in Scotland all you had to do was keep voting for your current MP, most of whom were SNP, rather than risk splitting the anti-Tory vote by switching to Labour and risk letting the Tories squeeze through in the middle. (Which would have happened in many seats had the Tories’ own vote not collapsed.)
But if it was true that the SNP lost because the electorate thought the election was about getting rid of the Tories, whose fault was that?
Whoops!
Joke. Aye well. Not in my lifetime. We will become independent.
Pieces of of toilet paper .
I voted to remove the SNP. It looks like I will be doing the same in 2 years.
They are obviously not going to listen to us.
Let’s face it, the SNP are the Norwegian Blue of Scottish politics.
The SNP would not be out of step with this organization’s aims.
link to gillfoundation.org
Very close to Biden admin. which endorses with patronage its projects.
Got an ambassadorship for the «husband» of the founder.
Makes philanthropy a dirty word.
There but by a quirk of the electoral system.
Truly, your country needs you like never before.
The SNP really have not learned anything, have they. Catastrophic policy failures and the gender shite have destroyed them, not the Tories situation. Hell mend them, they’ll have to be wiped out in 2026.
They might have lost all interest in trying and are coming out wi’ the handiest soundbite not caring who finds it convincing. They may have their heids so far up their ain backsides that they are incapable of seeing themsels as ithers see them. Or, or, or they’ve been sneggin’ the gleg from the beginning doon there and their heids are clean awa’.
Until Scotland kick the SNP out of Scotland Independence will NEVER happen.
When can we expect to hear something from the leadership; Swinney and Flynn. I recall following the GE they said they were listening. What next then? Or is it nothing to see here, move along, carry on regardless.
The stupid thing is they were just doing a poor imitation of Labour’s strategy; the only argument there is for Labour, in actual fact, is that they aren’t Tories (and by voting Labour you can rid the world of Tories).
Of course, there is nothing that the SNP could have done or said in the run-up to the election that would have made much difference. People don’t trust the SNP and most of us assume everything they say, especially at election time, is lies.
Stronger for Liars
The post-hoc subtext of Robertson & Wishart is ‘we won’t be changing anything’.
Quelle surprise.
Its funny, my constituency was SNP first Tories secodn last election.
I actually voted Tory this just to try and get rid of the SNP!
It is utterly ridiculous for the SNP to claim that Scotland was busy kicking out Tories so didn’t vote for them – loud and clear everyone , We kicked out a party that didn’t pay any heed to the electorate, pushed through the daft , the deviant and the dodgy policies. A party that didn’t mention independence or take any action for future independence , arsed about and gave credence to Green party idiocy. A party that tried to imprison a previous FM , engineered the imprisonment of Craig Murray , tried the same trick on Mark Hirst, and generally mistreated anyone within the party who disagreed with their dictate.
Vanishing money , nicked from funds which should have been safely protected for indy ref 2.
SNP I loathe what you have become and you did it with NO help.
The snp have come out with every excuse under the sun for their hammering apart from the one over-riding one that we have been trying to get them to listen and understand since at least 2016-17. Their own deliberate blocking of any move towards independence and their arrogant dismissal and even aggression/criminal proceedings towards any public figure who spoke out about that failure. They are obviously still trying fool their sheeples into continued support without the slightest intention of seeking indy in any way. And the sheeples will still swallow the excuses!
Wonder why I’m being moderated – what have I done?
Alyn Smith went for “Only SNP can beat the Tories in Stirling & Strathallan” on his leaflet with a pretty graph. “Labour can’t win here!” was his other line, but apparently they could and did, removing Big Daddy from his ‘safe’ seat.
They don’t want to fix it. They deliberately miss the point and continue to make the wrong decisions time after time after time. Eventually we are going to have to conclude that they are doing it deliberately because, eventually, there will be no other explanation left. The people who have been quoted are at the top of the party. They don’t want the party to die and they don’t want it to recover.
Was it unreasonable for the SNP to think they could get away with lying about this election?
They’ve been lying to the voters of Scotland for decades. And they’ve won a lot of elections with those lies.
40% of voting Scots (on average) have in the past accepted their lies. The SNP assumed the voters wouldn’t wake up and they could continue their grifting–and on form, that was not an unreasonable assumption.
Andrew Morton 4.04pm
If we hadn’t nailed them to the perch.
In my opinion folk (who vote SNP) voted against the SNP in a protest vote, over their lousy policies of the last decade, and its specifically down to what Sturgeon and her ultra woke clique did that riled folk.
Putting the fact aside that she (Sturgeon) sold Scots out on Brexit and indy, she as leader then her successors ran Scotland terribly things have gotten worse not better since Alex Salmond stood down as FM. Salmond build the (not literally) New Forth Crossing and the Borders Railway extension on time and under budget. Since then we’ve seen Sturgeon and her successors wasted millions of taxpayers cash the two-ferries debacle springs to mind.
It wasn’t just the indy voters that’s had enough of the SNP soft indy supporters and floating voters must have decided enough is enough and sent them packing.
“They sowd the wind and now they are going to reap the whirlwind” hee hee hee.
The SNP are finished.
No action on independence and support for the utter madness of gender reform.
It’s time for the SNP to shut up shop.
Let’s all try a new pro independence party.
The SNP, as predicted by many of us, became Labour so people voted for Labour.
St Andrews University, The Foreign Office, environmentalism, non consensual jiggerypokery, an inspiration for the SNP/Green coalition?
link to archive.ph
Meanwhile more and more irrevocable britnats move into Scotland from England.
Unfortunately it is NOT just the Scum Nonce Party that LIED to the electorate it is EVERY party, THEY ALL DID IT and continue to do so because they hold the electorate in such contempt
The snp ARSEHOLES citing this excuse KNOW that it is horseshit but they will NOT be called out on it publicly by any broadcaster, and dumb PARTY loyalists and apologists like the ones on PayPal Paul’s grifting site will nod their wee heids and clamber back under their wee rocks, as they did wae niclas secret plan pish
POLITICIANS LIE it is the nature of the job and until we can FORCE a mechanism on them to punish them they will continue to do so, if you look at the corruption and lies by politicians over the last 15 to 20 years how many of them had the integrity to resign and how many of them were FORCED to stand down or were sacked by their party and brought back to continue their theft and corruption , the continuous expenses scandals, the covid party’s, brexshit,tax avoidance and evasion,
These bastards lie to your face with NO CONCIENCE and NO REMORSE, KNOWING we cannot PUNISH them
I despair ar the sheer stupidity of the SNP
How can they have got so dim,?
Don’t answer, we know Sturgeon
They will learn nothing from this defeat
Doug @5.58pm.
BBC Shortbread news actively seeks out an English voices when its reporting out doors, also its appears to be norm now that when say a museum curator is interviewed by a supposedly Scottish news channel it almost always inevitably turns out to an English person.
Scotland is now swamped with folk from across the border, this has put immeasurable pressure on our public services such as dentists, doctors, and hospitals and social housing.
Its only going to get worse Doug, unless we can stop the flood from down south. In my opinion the tipping point on a indyref against indy has already been reached due to the flood of folk from England moving to Scotland.
For me strict criteria must be implemented for any constitutional vote, sadly there’s no politician out there, or on the horizon that has the balls or acumen to do this.
Well, you either have to conclude that these are the stupidest people on the planet or they deliberately ensured that Labour would win. I do not believe they are that stupid (at least, the ones at the top) so that leaves only the deliberate sabotage of their own vote after almost ten years of stultifying stasis and milking the political cash cow for their own benefit.
They know they could not achieve independence or anything near it because of their own collaborationist and cowardly approach to independence. Neither did they want any other group to achieve what they could not and would not. Their strategy was to invite in Labour and let disillusionment with Labour do the work for them in 2026.
They should have listened to Kevin McKenna who went round the doorsteps with candidates of all parties and none. He concluded that absolute loathing of the SNP kept independence supporters at home to the tune of between half a million and a million. The main topics being raised on the doorsteps were the GRR/Hate Crime, the drop in living standards and the stasis on independence, not necessarily in that order.
The SNP thought they were being smart when they introduced the GRR and the Hate Crime stuff. They made the cardinal error of forgetting that the young grow up to become tax-payers, that the young are notoriously immature and change their minds on fashions and esoteric beliefs as they grow. They also forgot that middle-aged women have the vote (and I’m sure that many of them would happily remove it if they could).
Working-class people and those on benefits had nothing to vote for – zilch, and, with independence off the menu except for soundbites and the promise of yet another referendum that would be refused immediately, they stayed at home. Many women spoiled their ballot papers rather than vote SNP. As per, the Unionists swapped votes where it counted. Unionism is just that – a union of interests, whether Labour or Tory or Lib Dem. In some constituencies, Greens let the Labour candidate through to take the seat, and the irony is that some of these Greens are ‘trans’. You couldn’t make it up. Will the SNP top brass admit what really went on? Nah. Same old, same old come 2026 unless, by some miracle, some at the top grows a pair.
Sigh. Unbelievable. They are just so far off the mark. Full denial mode. Are they really that dumb, or are they still trying to gaslight us?
Maybe, come the time, we should compile a “Troughers List” of ex-MPs and other spongers seeking election as Holyrood list MSPs in 2026. I expect that list will be very long. Troughers aka career politicians are useless at most things in life and politics, but when it comes to worming their way into local candidate selections, they are the masters of the universe. All the usual suspects will be there. Nobody wants them, but they will be there. If you listen carefully, you can already hear the sound of brass necks being quietly polished.
Doug: “… Meanwhile more and more irrevocable britnats move into Scotland from England… ”
Exactly how women feel re ‘trans’.
I have kept my SNP membership on though I think they are vile and disgusting and I spoiled my ballot rather than vote for them or any of the other useless rancid twats on offer. I keep my membership on because I like to see what drivel they will come up with next. Today, it’s a survey of members asking my opinion of them so I gave it to them straight re failure on independence in favour of pushing gender woo woo. Perhaps it’s worth joining up just to answer the survey which, if they really wanted to know the truth, they’d ask members who’ve left???
In my experience, it’s down to people believing their vote has an impact on a GE.
“It looks like Labour might have a chance of beating the Tories in England – I’d better help by voting for Labour, or they might lose!”
I don’t think its much more complicated than that. Nobody has said, or at least convinced them (and the gods know I’ve tried) “What if I told you you don’t have to vote Labour – England gets what England wants regardless of what you vote”
I know I haven’t found anyone who believes their Scottish vote doesn’t help decide a UK government – quite the opposite, they are adamant it does.
So, if you are one of those people and you have been given a sniff of getting rid of a UK Tory government, and told it’s all hands to the pumps – you’re definitely voting Labour, even if you boak.
Who told them it was all hands to the pumps? Well you’ve just read their campaign literature here.
What did the SNP expect, that the electorate would think the SNP could win a UK general election? They’re daft, but not that daft.
@RoS 6.29pm
For me strict criteria must be implemented for any constitutional vote, sadly there’s no politician out there, or on the horizon that has the balls or acumen to do this.
That’s because it’s a crap idea with negligible popular support. No reputable politician wants to be associated with xenophobia, bigotry and blood and soil nativism.
Surely if you’re really convinced your ethno-nationalism is so popular any new party or movement you and the other moonhowlers set up to promote the exclusivist, pure blooded Scotland of your dreams.
How’s that going? didn’t you used to crow about being an Alba member and supporter? I bet you must have loved Alex Salmond pissing all over calls for franchise restriction.
Perhaps you can find a Scottish Farage to push for your wee tartan Belarus?
republicofscotland@6:29pm
Are you really blaming ‘the english’ for the crumbling services? I’ve read some nonsense on various forums but that has to be up there.
I suppose that it must be the same down south, with the hordes of Scots flooding their services as well, desperate to get away from the pish here.
@ Republicofscotland at 4.49pm:
“Salmond build the (not literally) New Forth Crossing and the Borders Railway extension on time and under budget.”
While not disagreeing with your point about the generally superior competence of Salmond’s leadership, the Borders Railway was a Labour-initiated project, completed by the SNP many years late and massively over-budget, and to a minimal specification which allows no more than a basic service to operate on it with no flexibility to allow for delays and breakdowns. Indeed, for all their trumpet-blowing about green targets and how much CO2 they’re saving (see all those infuriating billboards at Edinburgh Waverley), the SNP’s record on transport has been absolutely abysmal. Bus services have been cut everywhere, no railway infrastructure capacity has been added, and there are barely enough trains or drivers to operate the service. Meanwhile, housing schemes which are only accessible by car are still being built all over the place.
I’m afraid it wasn’t ‘we’ or ‘Scotland’ who get credit for giving SNP at drubbing, and it wasn’t the abstainers or spoilers. It was almost entirely down to the half million of SNP’s supporters from 2021, who have belatedly become aware of SNP’s shortcomings.
And, make no mistake, it will be the remaining 725K who will shape the immediate future.
It would therefore be a terrible mistake if we sat back, feeling chuffed with the GE result, and waited. SNP will be having a fierce internal probe and will need to face up to the reality of its (probable) irreversible decline.
But each Indy group must face up to the fact that there is little else to celebrate.
HARDLY ANY of those half million erstwhile SNP voters were tempted by any other Indy candidate. If as many as 2% WERE tempted that would equate to 10K, while 490K shunned what was on offer.
This is no longer about kicking the SNP – they are going down; the only uncertainty is the timescale.
No, this is about finding a formula that appeals to the rank and file. Big name politicians need to eat humble pie and start asking what those who support Indy want rather than telling us what’s on offer, because their strategies(?) were every bit as disastrous as SNPs.
It’s too bad that small Indy groups have competed and squandered countless tens of thousands of donations and subs on the futile exercise of campaigning in the GE: it would have been a smarter move to forgo the GE, then afterwards send foot soldiers round schemes ASKING what electors wanted from their leaders, conduct surveys, and hold open meetings where the audience talked and the leaders listened.
Our obstinate leaders must ditch their egos and pet projects, work as a team, and do it quickly. Working together and focusing solely on rank-and-file issues, we may make progress.
In fairness the Labour party used to be exactly the same. I remember in Dundee West getting leaflets from Labour explaining that only they could get the Tories out and completely failing to even mention the SNP to whom they lost by more than 10k. Its what politicians do.
Well send the SNP another message in 2026. Whats funny is how Swinney actually believe he’s conning us into believing he’s in charge, will the actual leader of the SNP please appear in ITV wasn’t sturgeon performance terrible a bit like her leadership. I bet there raiding their piggy banks for funds sorry the money all gone.
@Republicofscotland (6.29) –
‘For me strict criteria must be implemented for any constitutional vote, sadly there’s no politician out there, or on the horizon that has the balls or acumen to do this’
Hear hear.
There’s no point in even thinking about another referendum if the franchise stays as-is. We’d lose. The demographics will be even worse for us two years hence.
We need prominent voices such as Alex Salmond, Ash Regan, and of course, our good host to ‘finesse’ their positions on this – the old ‘we have to convince the undecided’ doesn’t cut it because those who’ve bailed out of England to grab a bargain, their own wee slice of Brigadoon, will not be swayed. If anything, they’re becoming emboldened as their numbers grow and they get control of local decision-making at the most fundamental level. They want to have their cake, eat it, and make sure they drop as few crumbs as possible.
If the franchise isn’t changed then we’ll be handing them more power than they already have. And they know it.
Anyone trying to say there is one reason for this is simplifying things. Yes many voted against SNP
And..
My mates mostly voted to get the tories out. “PM will be one of tory or labour”.
Nonsense or not, many toom this view.
Take off the anti SNP specs for once eh.
Thomas Potter
12 July, 2024 at 4:09 pm
“Until Scotland kick the SNP out of Scotland Independence will NEVER happen.”
100% true.
ALBA has made a bad start, mainly because of Alex Salmond remaining loyal to the SNP despite everything that was done to him.
The gloves must come off and those who left the SNP must expose the SNP’s crimes.
To maintain any credibility, SNP MPs who lost their Westminster seats must not be accepted into ALBA.
Republic 5.58.
Otherwise known as cultural colonialism.
If all our major historical, cultural and educational institutions are run by southerners. Then the very identity of Scotland is eventually erased. This has been going on for 100 years.
The Edinburgh Festival being the prime example. One Scottish director in 70 years! Our Universities, the seats of learning. Are swamped with lecturers and professors from England. Art galleries and museum curators are mainly southerners.
I visited a museum on South Uist and was patronised on gaelic culture by a lady from Surrey. Most of the Gaels are digging the ditches or working in Glasgow. It’s their culture she is using to provide her with an income.
You are correct about BBC Scotland. It’s a novelty and delight when a Scottish accent is heard running something. Because it’s not the normal. They maybe interview 10 people on their vox pops and select 4. Usually at least 2 southerners.
This is what happens when the colonists run your country.
Eh oop, Ellis just shit the bed again….
Seems Big Jock is not only racist but wants to ethnically cleanse Scotland of foreigners. So once you have purged the English Big Jock who are next the Irish, the Indians those of Chinese extraction. Instead of the moniker of Big Jock why don’t you use Pol Pot instead . Where are your killing fields going to be Big Jock Pol Pot, how about Bannockburn that would tick all your racist ethnic cleansing boxes, is that right Aye…
Pink Floyd are the reason punk rock was invented.
Ellis is so full of shit.
He actively supports & is cheerleader for colonial xenophobes, bigots and blood and soil nativists, terrorists, ethnic cleansers, illegal invasions & apartheid.
I bet he has a sheet & a torch..
& BTW, Herr Flick, Salmond doesn’t speak for Sovereign Scots. A franchise will be decided by Scots. Not by a single politician who thinks they know better. He’s not up for listening? Well he’ll remain going nowhere if he thinks we’re going to listen to any more of that “Gold standard” pish we’ve heard since 2014.
You won’t be on any convention so go sit down.
There is a large English population in some rural areas but they have a minimal effect on elections when compared to urban areas.
However I would bet that there are far more Scots in England than the other way round. Should these guys all come back?
I know when I tried to hire staff some years ago on the west coast around 50% of then moved up from various parts of england because there simply was not many locals that either wanted the jobs or had the skills.
It’s a fact of life that many folk from rural areas leave for the south for education or work and just don’t come back.
Big Jock
Aye & if they’re short on the ground that day they’ll pick an American tourist who, unrelated to their story, drops in they think the Royal family is smashing.
*Yawns* They’ve got to get the britnat message in somewhere.
Rob
A referendum regards the constitution is completely different from an election.
Do you think Scots living in England would have a vote on an English independence referendum? It wouldn’t even be up for discussion, they wouldn’t.
I’ve just bought Jim Sillars book my political journey.
He says it like it is.
He calls out the ineptitude of the Scottish Government.
We need truth tellers like Jim Sillars.
If anyone reads this. Tell him he’s got a new fan. I’ve bought his book.
He’s talking about the quality of the intake of politicians deteriorating, on Alex Salmond’s show.
Mediocrity now reins he says.
And its echoed in our NHS. It’s under seige from corruption and mediocrity.
This has to change.
Jim Sillars. 86 years old. He’s brilliant.
The older the people are the smarter they are. Until dementia kicks in.
There’s no such thing as fresh ideas. Not with this shit show of social media degenerates – tik tok brains etc.
We learn from life. The one true purgatory. Jim Sillars. I’ll read every chapter of his book. He won in Govan in the 80s. I want to hear the story. He’s smart.
He goes right at it with such passion in his interview with Salmond. He wants to reverse the decline in our society. He wants independence. Jim Sillars. He’s brilliant. Give his interview a listen.
Jim Sillars. Make him SNP president.
He’s furious. He’s absolutely livid with Sturgeon – stalin’s wee sister. He wants us to THINK
ahah. YESS. Fucking get them told Jim. I’ll vote for 86 year old Jim Sillars.
Abolish the beurocracy Jim. NHS. Can you get Jim Sillars to speak on the NHS. We need to hear more from him on the NHS.
Someone get Jim Sillars on the phone. I want to hear him Talk NHS.
NHS is the highest priority in Scotland. The number 1 priority.
It’s time management are held to account for the decline they are running it into the ground. They are turning it into a shitshow.
Shine a torch on the deep recessess of management of the NHS.
It seems strange, to me at any rate, that SNP MSPs thought things like ULEZ, increasing MUP to almost £19.00 for a bottle of whisky, and Matheson would not affect the chances of their MPs being re-elected. I am surprised they even have nine left.
And as usual WHITE FLIGHT ELLIS the hypocrite who left his beautiful home after 25 years in the south of england because of the HORDES of channel crossers now wants Scotland to be subsumed then consumed by engerland
His stupidity insists that ALBA’s open borders and open franchise policy has the maximum support of voters which returned 1.5% of the electorate
YET the newly formed Reform party which is vehemently against immigration gained 7% of the electorate
ELLIS insists that these were all racist voters and they don’t count because they didn’t abide by the civic progressive mantra, but surely 7% is a higher number than 1.5% and if they were elected would ELLIS move somewhere else
I
DavidT
Ignored says:
13 July, 2024 at 3:45 am
It seems strange, to me at any rate, that SNP MSPs thought things like ULEZ, increasing MUP to almost £19.00 for a bottle of whisky, and Matheson would not affect the chances of their MPs being re-elected. I am surprised they even have nine left.
I find it breathtaking that the Party for Independence thinks it can simply abandon Independence and suffer no consequences.
If there was a Darwin Award for political parties, winning it seems the only conceivable victory within the SNP’s grasp.
There are major questions/ suspicions precisely how such a successful party on top of its game, returning 56 out of 59 MP’s can systematically turn itself inside out and betray the people of Scotland who actually want Independence, but it’s more important that we get Independence back on the front foot rather than worrying about the SNP’s recent decent into darkness.
The truth will out eventually, probably once the trials begin, and the Alphabetties crack under interrogation. But that doesn’t seem imminent, given the UK Establishment and Crown Office “individuals” still think Sturgeon and Co have their uses.
But it isn’t going away.
In politics, you do not fight on your opponents territory. The strength of the SNP, in any election has been to achieve independence. That is it. They were the only large political party in Scotland to stand on such a platform.
So, to go into an election, with a campaign based around the political territory of your opponents – Labour (get the tories out) is not just a bad political strategy. it is plain daft.
This is the problem. Because the SNP have sidelined their focus on independence, they are struggling to find relevance in Scotland. People voted for them for independence, AND because they were perceived as competent in Government.
Both those things were abandoned by the SNP under Sturgeon. They had one golden opportunity after another – brexit, Boris, Truss, and so the list goes on. Chance after chance to really hammer home the democratic deficit in Scotland under English colonial rule. They really could have strengthened the narrative about why Scotland didn’t just need independence, but that it was urgent. Instead they just repeatedly whined about a section 30 and getting ‘permission’. Utterly utterly pathetic. Everybody in Scotland, and their dug, knows England is NOT going to give permission.
Then in another epic failure they allowed Sturgeon and her creepy gender cabal (which includes the ‘greens’), to focus the party and government on nonsense legislation, which (and it pains to say it) LONDON rightly struck down. Silly, silly self-indulgent personal petty childish gender nonsense, instead of fighting for Scottish independence.
So then came the UK election in 2024, and since the SNP had lost its focus on independence, it had to fight on a slogan, which was entirely the strategy for their opponents in Scotland, LABOUR. ‘Get the Tories out. Just who were they trying to kid?
Labour in Scotland cannot fight an election on independence, since they rigidly oppose democracy for Scotland, and an end to English rule. THAT is the opportunity for the SNP. Instead they are trying to fight on Labour’s own political turf – ‘getting the tories out’.
So, if John Swinney happens to read this, its really rather simple. To wholly misappropriate the famous quote by Bill Clinton’s political strategist, James Carville in 1992, up here in Scotland, it isn’t ‘the economy, stupid’, it isn’t even ‘getting the Tories out’, no, it’s about independence. I’ll write it in big for you, INDEPENDENCE. THAT is your winning ground. Anything else is hubris.
Breeks at 0535am,
That last paragraph, so very important. We are seeing signs of it already. Nicola Sturgeon, bought and sold, so to speak. In London’s eyes, a useful, compliant idiot. And, metaphorically, they have one hell of a legal ‘stick’ to beat her with.
link to archive.ph
Another advert for Brasso…
@Ian Bloddandsoilhood 9.43am
We need prominent voices such as Alex Salmond, Ash Regan, and of course, our good host to ‘finesse’ their positions on this…
Good luck with that! I know Alex Salmond think’s it’s a crap idea. He said as much in an Alba meeting in Edinburgh on 6th August 2022 which I attended, saying:
“I hear people talking about restricting franchises incidentally. I have to say I don’t like it much. Our franchise should be everybody in Scotland. Because, you know if the franchise in 2014 had been restricted to Asian Scots we’d have won in a landslide.”
Looks like you might have your work cut out there. How many Scots do you think are going to weigh up his words and those of the xenophobes and bigots in here and agree with the latter? Awa’ and gie yer heid a rattle!
As for Rev Stu, he can doubtless speak for himself. Oh…wait…he already has on Twatter back in 2022:
If you want to deny 20% of the people who live in Scotland the vote in a referendum because they were born somewhere else, we’re not on the same side. If you want their votes, fucking well persuade them. If you can’t, your case is shit.
And stop whining that by saying this I’m trying to “shut down debate”. I have no power and no desire to stop you debating it. You can debate it all you want. I’m not reporting you to Twitter or the police. I’m just not interested.
We debated this in 2011 and we came to the right decision. Nothing has happened that justifies abandoning that principle in my view. You can’t just disenfranchise people because you think they’ll vote the wrong way.
As well as being morally wrong, it’s almost certainly self-defeating. The Scotland you’d be trying to sell people under that franchise is a very different place to the one we were advocating in 2014, and very much for the worse.
That, of course, is true in many ways. If we got a referendum tomorrow I don’t in all honesty know if I could bring myself to campaign in it, because it’d be a *de facto* campaign for Nicola Sturgeon’s vision of a hellish, intolerant, incompetent and corrupt Scotland.
But that’s not a decision I need to lose sleep over, because we’re not getting a referendum tomorrow, or next year, or the year after that, or the year after that.
But I’ve officially lost any urge to even think about it, if even the people opposed to that awful vision just have a different kind of awful vision, of a country where only “ethnic Scots” have a say. Bollocks to that.
The idea that the independence movement is so weak that it can’t construct a pro-independence majority from the >80% of native born Scots and the pro-independence New Scots is for the birds. You only have to look at the language of the intellectual barrel scraping in here who support franchise restrictions and rail against furriners and incomers: they’d gladden the heart of Farage and Reform and will get the same cold shoulder from any right thinking Scot.
@Geri 1.21am
I see the hardening of the arteries continues apace.
A referendum regards the constitution is completely different from an election.
Do you think Scots living in England would have a vote on an English independence referendum? It wouldn’t even be up for discussion, they wouldn’t.
You are correct that elections, referendums are completely different things, but as has been pointed out to you and other unreasoning moonhowlers over and over again, self determination referendums use open, inclusive franchises. Virtually without exception all of those held in recent decades use a franchise the same or even more open that that used in 2014. You’re entitled to you own bigoted, xenophobic opinions Geri, but not to your own class of facts.
There are reckoned to be > 800,000 Scots born folk in the rest of the UK. It’s a racing certainty they’d be enfranchised in any referendum there too, because the vast majority are convinced unionists.
Oh do shut up, Ellis
The UK heavily restricts even simple general elections & is going to restrict council elections too. Both restricted to residency. 10 yrs+.
So away & peddle yer lies elsewhere. Scots would NOT have a vote if they were to hold an independence referendum.
No sane country has people who’ve just arrived off a bus a vote on constitutional referendums unless they’re a fucking moron who is deliberately throwing the vote to NEVER win.
YOU won’t be deciding. Neither will Alex Salmond.
He bangs on about “Scots Sovereignty” & Scots “Claim of Right” then apparently wants to give that away to a student/migrant worker here five minutes who will probably fuck off a year later back to their OWN country. Scotland is hardly bursting with opportunities for them eh?
The people who will decide are the people who’ve lived here 10 yrs+ Get used to it. Only yoons want an open rigged election & the britnats are renowned the world over for it.
I don’t think there’ll be a referendum on Scottish independence. I think the treaty will be terminated & any future referendum will be one on REJOINING where the UK would be forced to present the benefits.
Salmond needs to clarify his position in a statement & he needs to get passed 2014. It wasn’t a gold standard event. It was a massive failure in every regard. Not just the franchise but the idiocy of having a referendum on a domestic franchise & fck all ever in legal writing.
Get the Tories out of Westminster but not the SNP out of Westminster – they rather like it there was the message loud & clear.
They could’ve called a referendum then it’d not have been our concern what England voted for.
The whole rotten barrel is beyond saving. Foote, Sturgeon & her cabal are still poisoning the well. They continue to blame everything but themselves thinking people will buy it. It’s just further contempt.
“Are you really blaming ‘the english’ for the crumbling services? I’ve read some nonsense on various forums but that has to be up there.
I suppose that it must be the same down south, with the hordes of Scots flooding their services as well, desperate to get away from the pish here.”
Ross.
The English are largest demographic group moving to Scotland, and although Scottish services were in a state of decline, the influx of many folk from South of the border has only exacerbated this.
We in Scotland have absolutely no say on who can and cannot move to Scotland, that is controlled by the foreign country of England.
As for Scots moving South and putting pressure on English services that is far less potent as Scotland only has a much smaller population and smaller numbers of folk moving South where their are more services in a country of at least 50 million to our 5.5 million and less services.
The influx of folk from South of the border must be reduced or the pressures on our public services will only become greater and to do this we need the powers of government, power that all other governments around the globe have and take for granted.
Infact Scotland will continue to go into decline until we ditch this illegal union, for no country can grow and prosper without ALL the levers and domestic powers a government needs to keep a country on a level keel. We can’t have a foreign country’s government (England) interfere or have reserved powers that all other governments around the globe take for granted.
Our oil and gas has been stolen for decades and now our wind and water renewable energies are and have been sold off for a pittance, we host a foreign country’s nuclear weapons, this foreign country steals hundreds of millions from Scotland every day using smart accounting tricks, our languages, culture and history have all been sidelined and replaced by those of this foreign neighbour with help from a plethora of well paid House Jocks, or English folk parachuted into gatekeeping positions.
Sean Clerkin once held a banner up at the border which said England out of Scotland or something similar the English media in Scotland (that’s all of it that pretends its Scottish) berated the guy but Clerkin was canny enough back then to know the score that English folk are flooding in Scotland, many old retirees with a bundle of cash that they sold a modest house for crazy money in London and the surrounding areas, they can buy a castle or such in Scotland with the profits, they want to live out the Brigadoon life or what’s left of it in Scotland, whilst putting incredible pressure on our public services.
Scotland is Fucked unless it can shut that gate, or at the very least take control of it.
Post election, well the aim was to get the tories out, that was our campaign, and people made the choice ie labour.
Kirsty Blackman for chief whip. She can teach them a dance or two!!
They are totally f….. Usless so they are
RoS
Call them expats LOL
They’re a special kind of immigrant doncha know.
Geri
Ignored says:
13 July, 2024 at 9:38 am
Oh do shut up, Ellis
The UK heavily restricts even simple general elections & is going to restrict council elections too. Both restricted to residency. 10 yrs+.
Geri’s “do shut up” is the most intellectual part of Geri’s babbling comment.
There is NO “10+ years” residency requirement in UK voting law. See link to commonslibrary.parliament.uk (published two days ago)
Geri spews utter nonsense.
But I won’t demand that Geri “shut up.” Just the opposite, I urge Geri to continue to post endless screeds that discredit the Indy cause.
@twatbynametwatbynature 3.29am
I see I’m still living rent free in your head bud: luckily there’s plenty of room in such an empty space. All I’ve found so far is a well thumbed Collected Works of Enoch Powell and a weird shrine to Nigel Farage. As to the content of your barely verbal contribution:
And as usual WHITE FLIGHT ELLIS the hypocrite who left his beautiful home after 25 years in the south of england because of the HORDES of channel crossers now wants Scotland to be subsumed then consumed by engerland
In truth, I left my beautiful home because I wanted to come back to Scotland having paid off my mortgage, and the motivation wasn’t to flee the “HORDES of channel crossers” as you so xenophobically put it, but to flee the gammons and nativists in Engerlund with whom you and the nativists soiling BTL in here have so much in common. I’m not sure how that can be described as hypocritcal. Perhaps it made sense in your head….we can hear the grinding noise from here.
His stupidity insists that ALBA’s open borders and open franchise policy has the maximum support of voters which returned 1.5% of the electorate
It’s not my stupidity Twatbyname, civic nationalism represents the views of the overwhelming majority of Scots, and of pro-independence Scots. No party was standing on a platform of franchise restriction, or closing borders or restricting the franchise. If they were mad enough to do so, I imagine they’d poll even lower than Alba just did.
Of course if you and your xenophobic, bigoted moonhowling mates were that confident, doubtless you’ll set up your own party to push for your Faragist vision: “Tartan Reform” perhaps? See how far that get’s you.
YET the newly formed Reform party which is vehemently against immigration gained 7% of the electorate
ELLIS insists that these were all racist voters and they don’t count because they didn’t abide by the civic progressive mantra, but surely 7% is a higher number than 1.5% and if they were elected would ELLIS move somewhere else
I’m not sure summoning the ghost of Reform is a great approach in Scotland. Wanting to be like the worst sections of the already widely reviled Tory party in Scotland wouldn’t appear to be a great strategy….but fill yer boots mate, see how many folk sign up!
I imagine a whole lot of the 7% misguided enough to support Reform in Scotlands are bona fide racists, or at best would be considered xenophobic bigots, so I can see how you and the usual suspects in here banging on about franchise restriction and “we wuz robbed by furriners” type would feel right at home in such an organisation.
I’m pretty confident they’d never, ever gain power in Scotland even if they managed to win an MSP or two on the list like the Greens did with a similar % of support. I’d hate to see them elected, but it wouldn’t prompt me to leave: I’m too settled now to think about moving.
Given what’s happened in the UK and Scotland over the past decade, I’d definitely have thought of moving elsewhere if I’d realised how gutless most of my fellow countrymen appear to be. It’s been an eye opener too that so many are prepared to adopt the regressive, nativist views common amongst so many little Englanders and to ditch civic nationalism. Just goes to show you can fool some of the people all of the time, and that any mass movement will have a leavening of moonhowlers and regressive scumbags.
‘In truth, I left my beautiful home because I wanted to come back to Scotland having paid off my mortgage, and the motivation wasn’t to flee the “HORDES of channel crossers” as you so xenophobically put it, but to flee the gammons and nativists in Engerlund with whom you and the nativists soiling BTL in here have so much in common.’
So, ‘Engerlish’ gammons and nativists who have a few bob and can afford a wee but ‘n ben ‘up north’ should be permitted to vote on Scotland’s future?
Some folk claim or state residency restriction because they think that it will it will allow them to get what they want.
It isn’t going to happen and disenfranchising so many folk would make any referendum meaningless and it would have to be rerun anyway.
The only qualification for voting should be that your permanent residence is in Scotland, English or not.
The rules for who can move into Scotland are a whole different issue unrelated to voting rights. Folk are here and you have to deal with it, whether you let more in is a separate issue to those already here.
Personally I am against open unrestricted immigration for the whole of the UK, never mind just Scotland but have no issues with legal immigrants already here.
You do realise the nativist argument doesn’t do the indy cause any good? You have to take everyone along with you and not just those you class as “true scots” in your little cabal.
Ian Brotherhood @9.430pm.
Ian.
I don’t even think Salmond or Reagan has it in them to do what’s required to rid Scotland of this illegal union. In my opinion there’s not a politician in Scotland yet that has what it takes to do what is required to free Scotland from England’s cold deathly grip.
Salmond held an indyref in 2014, and for me he got the constitutional voting franchise all wrong, sadly I think he’d probably repeat that mistake again even though the demographics against Scotland ridding itself from England are even further against us with the further influx of folk from down South.
Some will say I’m Anglophobe, let them, for me its all about the restoration of Scotland, and whatever it takes to achieve that, the other option is unthinkable that Scotland slowly but surely is held fast in the illegal union for another 300+ years as the demographics tips fully away from us and Scotland fate is accepted.
Of course the foreign media and its lickspittle mouthpieces online like to soften this blow to Scotland by calling these folk New Scots, and in the minds of many Scots that translates to, och they’ll vote for indy when the time comes, but as the 2014 indyref showed most didn’t.
Sadly many Scots are still trapped in what Alf calls the colonial mindset, their minds need decolonised, the foreign media (Scotland has non media to speak of) help reinforce this deceitful practice in many ways, from reporting that the English king is our king when he isn’t, to that we should vote in England’s GE, when its clearly not a Scottish election.
Scots need to start questioning to status quo before its too late, my elderly neighbour looked at me as though I had two heids when I told him about the McCrone Report, and that when you look out at Carnoustie Golf Course which is well inside the Scottish border you are looking out at English waters that were stolen from Scotland with the flick of a pen.
He was further shocked when I mentioned the Claim of Right and what it stood for he had no idea.
Clansman
Try reading yer own page
“England and Northern Ireland
For local elections in England and Northern Ireland the rules are the same as they are for UK Parliament elections with three main exceptions.
Members of the House of Lords can vote in local elections if they meet the age and residency requirements
Some EU citizens can vote in local elections (the eligibility is explained below)
Overseas voters cannot vote in local elections”
“**be either a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland
and not be subject to any ‘legal incapacity’ to vote – prisoners serving a sentence for a conviction cannot vote in UK parliamentary elections and neither can peers in the House of Lords.
The eligibility of Irish and Commonwealth citizens to vote in UK elections comes from the historic links between the UK and Ireland and between the UK and countries of the former British Empire.”
The Westminster puppet/MoD mouthpiece, Stewart McDonald, and ardent House Jock speaks.
“AN SNP MP who lost his seat at the General Election has said John Swinney must be a “ruthless bastard” and scrap the party’s commitment to removing nuclear weapons from Scotland within two years of the nation becoming independent.”
McDonald is now stabbing the backstabbers in the back, like ferrets in a sack, this particular Sin-op-hobe/R-uss-op-hobe, and life long maggot looks like he’s putting the boot into his ain troughing party.
Although I can’t stomach this Judas b*stard anything that helps bring down the Teflon Don and the SNP which full of the same kind of scum is welcomed.
PS F*ck You McDonald.
@Ian Bloodandsoilhood 2.02pm
So, ‘Engerlish’ gammons and nativists who have a few bob and can afford a wee but ‘n ben ‘up north’ should be permitted to vote on Scotland’s future?
Absolutely. Them’s the breaks. Unless you’re planning to have some future Scottish nationalist administration you approve of make windows in to people’s souls? Any other “out groups” you’d be excluding Ian?
Unless you and yer wee posse of xenophobes, bigots and sub-Faragist celtic gammons are going to suddenly convince the majority of ordinary Scots to support your deeply regressive worldview, and then ALSO convince the international community that it is proportionate for Scotland (virtually alone of all the countries who have had self determination referendums) to exclude several hundred thousand residents because *furriners!* you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Worse, you’re indefinitely postponing the achievement of independence in reality (rather than in the Brigadoon Belarusia of your wet dreams) because most right thinking Scots would never support a state based on such vile bigotry.
You and your muckers represent a fringe within an already insignificant bunch pedalling sophomoric wedge issue politics with negligible public support. Long may that continue!
“Some folk claim or state residency restriction because they think that it will it will allow them to get what they want.”
Nope. It’s for a fair & level playing field.
People fresh off the train do not get to decide Scotland’s constitution.
They certainly don’t in England or anywhere else. Residency is required & it should be the same for Scotland. We’re not special or wanting to rig the vote. If they don’t permanently live there then they don’t get to be bussed in for a wee day out to help their coloniser chums.
“Some folk claim or state residency restriction because they think that it will it will allow them to get what they want.
It isn’t going to happen and disenfranchising so many folk would make any referendum meaningless and it would have to be rerun anyway.
The only qualification for voting should be that your permanent residence is in Scotland, English or not.”
Rob.
There’s a guy who writes articles on Yours for Scotland he lives in Denmark, he wrote in one article (an older one) that either he or his wife had lived in Denmark for 15 years and they still didn’t get a constitutional vote.
In other nations around the globe you don’t get a constitutional vote either.
As for it isn’t going to happen, that’s down to not having the right people in place to make it happen.
Geri, again stating not what was said but the view you want.
I said voting rights for those who have Scotland as their permanent residence not “bussed in” which tbf is paranoid nonsense anyway.
The nativist argument just doesn’t add up anyway, how would you decide who was Scottish and who wasn’t en masse. Even trying to do so would simply bog down the process in legal arguments for years and nullify any result anyway as unrepresentative.
Crack on and see how you get on!
Here’s hoping the SNP go bust for good the treacherous b*stards.
“The SNP will take a hit of more than £10m a year following its general election hammering.
Staffing budgets for SNP MPs will fall by around £9m annually after last week’s result.”
This is on top of losing almost £1m a year in Short Money due to the drop in seats and votes won.
Former SNP MSP Alex Neil said: “These losses will be debilitating for the SNP.”
“He said of the drop in Short Money and of the loss of staffing allowances:
“This will present a great challenge for the SNP, as staff are the backbone of the party at Westminster and in MPs’ offices.”
@RoS 3.13pm
Denmark is already an independent state. When Scotland is an independent state, it will naturally have it’s own citizenship criteria and regulations about who is entitled to vote.
Peoples who are fighting for their independence via self determination are by definition not able to control who lives within the territory of the state they want to create.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times this is pointed out to the nativists in here, you’re NOT COMPARING LIKE WITH LIKE.
The franchise for self determination referendums is virtually without exception open, residence based and encompasses all of those with the right to vote. The very rare exceptions have related to unequivocally and internationally accepted cases of de-colonisation like Timor L’Este or New Caledonia.
Scotland – however hard the moonhowlers in here try to assert otherwise – is not accepted as a case of de-colonisation or as being a non self governing territory by the UN. Alf Baird’s fixation with and repetitive quotations about post colonial theory “proving” Scotland’s colonial status don’t make it any more true.
The only way the international community would accept the disenfranchisement of large numbers of Scottish residents would be in extreme circumstances where large scale ethnic cleansing or attempts to replace the native population could be demonstrated. Again, that just doesn’t apply here.
Even in the Baltic States, all of which had much larger influxes of non-native peoples from former Soviet republics, most of them deliberately planted to dilute the native population, the franchise used in their self determination referendums included those who had arrived recently.
You can’t honestly believe the international community are somehow going to treat the Scots as a unique and special case, given they haven’t had all the disadvantages of places like the Baltic States and former Yugoslav republics, just because a minority of bigots and xenophobes have an animus against some English folk moving to the Highlands, or other furriners buying property in our cities because that’s where they’re working? They’ll laugh in your face.
They will rightly point to the fact that if we can’t construct a pro-independence majority out of an overwhelmingly native born population, plus a (presumed) minority of the “New Scots” eligible to vote, then we don’t want it enough to deserve a hearing.
You’re never going to have the right people in place for it to happen, because they’d be vilified as the bigoted, xenophobic, blood and soil nationalists they would undoubtedly represent. Good!
Denmark seems to only allows Danish citizens to vote in any election or referendum, there is no distinction. So they cannot have taken out citizenship.
Before the nativist say “aha, got you” the argument does not apply here as we are all UK citizens unless there was a referendum, and all the arguments about who was Scottish made above still apply to that point where folk would have to choose.
Actually I think the eire situation would apply anyway where folk would have dual rights.
Essentially the only way forward is to deal with the situation as it is on the ground, not the way you would wish it to be and pretend it isn’t so.
I don’t believe that even if you excluded everyone bar the blood and soil nativists that there would be a yes vote currently anyway so can’t say I am that concerned.
The failure of the SNP has killed any enthusiasm in the majority of the populace at this time and the longer they take to do something about the longer it will be till this changes.
It may seem ironic but sturgeon has become the SNP’s Thatcher figure and is now absolute poison. They need to not only distance themselves from her but be seen to be doing so to have any chance if recovery.
Geri
You claimed there’s a 10-year+ residency requirement to vote in the UK. I said that was nonsense. Your reply says nothing about 10 years, let alone that there’s a 10-year requirement.
I encourage you to keep making incredibly stupid comments like this.
@Campbell 4.10pm
I encourage you to keep making incredibly stupid comments like this.
In Geri’s case that’d be all of them. Perhaps some day he/she/they will realise it’s time for them to hush and let the adults talk. Who knows, he/she/it might finally learn something.
Don’t know about you, but I won’t be holding my breath. 🙂
I.m a unionist and therefore worse then satan
however can i ask something
The idea that people have voted Labour to remove an SNP MP to stop the tories is a spectacularly stupid idea
So
Do the SNP actual believe it
or
Do they think that SNP voters are so dim that they will believe it?
“Denmark is already an independent state. When Scotland is an independent state, it will naturally have it’s own citizenship criteria and regulations about who is entitled to vote.
Peoples who are fighting for their independence via self determination are by definition not able to control who lives within the territory of the state they want to create.”
Ellis.
You forget that Scotland is a country an older country than England that is in an illegal union, held together by smoke and mirrors and some treacherous House Jocks.
There is no union.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
If we had the right people in place today we could set whatever criteria we wanted to, and there’s not a thing that Westminster could do about it, all that’s stopping this from happening is House Jock gatekeepers at Holyrood.
Once its widely exposed that the union is a lie and never existed in the first place (read the link) the English security services, which are NOT a friend to Scotland but an enemy in which one of their remits is to thwart Scots from finding out the truth about the union (they have created fake Salvo and Liberation websites) and Wingate W*nkers like you and Clansman are tasked with playing down The Claim of Right and any possibility of Scotland going it alone without stipulated criteria.
The foreign media in Scotland (Scotland has NO media to speak of) also plays its part in reinforcing the lie that the union exists when it doesn’t. I’ve yet to see any MSM news programme mention the CoR or any supposedly BBC/STV political programme debate it, most Scots are unaware that the union is a lie and the foreign media plays its part to keep it that way.
English governments are no friends to Scotland they’ve perpetuated the lie of the union for 300+ years and robbed Scotland blind using the myth of the union.
No “criteria” is required to leave something that we were never part of in the first place.
The SNP got its ass handed to it cause it’s crap : Sturgeon-GRR and no progress to indy was electoral bed death. Pro-indies had no motivation to go vote for crap.
Who’s a scot? A person born in Scotland but had absolutely no choice or say about it? A person who has been here over 65 years and chose to claim Scotland as their home? Or even the thousands of Scots who were not born in Scotland but hold dual nationality? Or maybe some who were not born here but have a Scottish birth certificate? What about the baby born over the border as mother was heading home to Scotland but baby came a few hours too early? Judging by the bigots on here its only the first example most of whom don’t meet the second example.
RoS
Regards McDonald
“AN SNP MP who lost his seat at the General Election has said John Swinney must be a “ruthless bastard” and scrap the party’s commitment to removing nuclear weapons from Scotland within two years of the nation becoming independent.”
What an eejits he is. The nukes wouldn’t belong to Scotland. We’ve only a share in them due & does anyone think Scotland would be allowed to keep nukes? LOL
& Does that eejit really believe we want a massive target sitting on the Clyde? I see Switzerland is already exercising buyers remorse. How fecking stupid of them to surrender territory & all legal rights to the colonisers. Good luck reversing that shit. They’ve no chance.
Colonialism is regarded as a crime against humanity and those working to perpetuate colonialism are complicit.
There is absolutely no mileage in trying the legalistic argument regarding the union, or the lack of it. Even if there was an outright smoking legal gun there would still have to a referendum to make the decision.
A legitimate referendum with a stricter franchise & conducted by external international observers.
The neighbour can’t just bus people in to swell the numbers.
Break Purdah rules.
Give migrants a vote.
Run 24 hour propaganda campaigns.
Invite world leaders to interfere.
Have legal written agreements the result will be implemented.
Have all postal votes verified & confirmed.
No holiday home & student vote.
There is a huge difference between a decolonisation referendum & some shite the colonisers just made up to rig the vote. The vow is an example of breaking the rules when they knew they were losing the vote along with the devo max pish that never happened. Dirty tactics would be out.
@Geri (10.53) –
Hear hear.
I’m wishing now I hadn’t used the word ‘tweaking’ in reference to indyref2 because it implies some kind of skullduggery.
As the list you’ve provided makes clear, it’s not about ‘tweaking’, it’s about laying out easily understood, fair ground rules. And without them it would be folly to agree to another ballot.
Alex Salmond, in interview (can’t remember if it was before or after the 2014 result) admitted that establishing franchise was one of the hardest things to work out before publication of the Big White Book.
@RoS 6.54pm
You forget that Scotland is a country an older country than England that is in an illegal union, held together by smoke and mirrors and some treacherous House Jocks.
I don’t forget it, it’s just that it isn’t relevant. Our right to self determination doesn’t rest on the fact we’re an older polity than England, or on our former status, or the fact that “we wuz robbed” 300 years ago and “the people” didn’t consent.
The UN is bung fu’ with countries that were never, ever independent in the existence of their peoples….until they became independent. The Estonians and Latvians had never had independent states of their own until they (briefly) gained independence post WW1. Similarly Slovakia was part of the kingdom of Hungary for several centuries, briefly achieved statehood as a German client state during WW2, then finally split from it’s federation with Czechia relatively recently.
So what…? Nobody abroad cares about Scotland’s colourful past, the Treaties of Union and the Convention of the Estates. They care about a majority of people voting for independence now in response to a clear question. They have no truck with all the constitutional navel gazing and frantic pin head dancing indulged in by the usual suspects in here. They certainly don’t buy the “cunning plans for indy” snake oil pedalled by Salco, Liberation Scotland, Alf Baird and his laughable post-colonial theory fixation.
Once you have the “right people” in place get back to us. Any hinsts who these “right people” are and how they’re being legitimised as the representatives of the “Community of the Realm”?
No…?
Though not.
More magical thinking from the not very well informed.
If as you and the moonhowlers insist the union is in fact the Norwegian Blue of constitutional theory, then it should be a shoe-in for you to get a definitive and incontrovertible legal ruling which will be accepted far and wide simply pointing out that the union is an Emperor without any clothes.
Seems a bit odd though that given it’s such a sure thing, nobody in 300 years has been able to do it.
One might almost think you were talking out of your hat.
Geri
Ignored says:
14 July, 2024 at 10:53 am
A legitimate referendum with a stricter franchise & conducted by external international observers.
“The neighbour can’t just bus people in to swell the numbers.”
Is there evidence that significant numbers of folk registered to vote who don’t lie here, remember you cannot be registered in two locations to vote. This one sounds a little paranoid to me but if there is evidence please provide it.
“Break Purdah rules.”
If you mean campaigning during the vote then the electoral commission should deal with this and sanction the individuals involved However in the referendums case I suspect most folk had already made up their minds?
“Give migrants a vote.”
Define “migrants” I am assumed you mean illegal migrants and asylum seekers who do not have the right of abode in the country. Surely you don’t mean this who have legally made this their permanent home?
“Run 24 hour propaganda campaigns.”
An option available to both sides and part of any election, both sides putting across their viewpoint, or do you think only the independence viewpoint should be publicisied?
“Invite world leaders to interfere.”
There will be international observers, why and who would we want interfering other than that. Its also a double edged sword as you assume they would be for independence.
“Have legal written agreements the result will be implemented.”
If there had been an overwhelming result for yes I cannot believe it would not have been implemented, this sounds a bit paranoid again?
“Have all postal votes verified & confirmed.”
This applies to all elections so it not specific to a referendum.
“No holiday home & student vote.”
You can only be registered in one location so you don’t get two votes if you have more than one home so not relevant. The student vote issue, do you mean foreign students or UK students? There may be an argument for UK students to be registered at their home address but only if they are staying in uni accom. For this in rented flats etc I can’t see how you would disenfranchise them fairly, they have the right to vote. The only argument here is that local folks wishes are swamped by large numbers of temp students in uni towns, but for a referendum this is meaningless as their votes would simply be counted elsewhere anyway.
“There is a huge difference between a decolonisation referendum & some shite the colonisers just made up to rig the vote.”
The 70’s referendum was rigged, I agree and remember this. The 2014 was just simply lost because not enough folk actually voted yes.
Ellis, why does it bother you that some people think Scottish history matters, etc? I’d say it was harmless but that would imply that there’s something to harm and there isn’t.
The fact is your approach — the constitutional route — is dead in the water.
Let people be.
Just get Branchform and Big Ecks case against SNP ScotGov DONE!
Honestly, could the legal system move any slower? It’s like watching a glacier melt.
Young Lochinvar @ 14.04.
It’ll be slower than a glacier I fear, Lochy. Glaciers are subject to natural laws, I fear that inquiries into SNP members are subject to no laws at all.
@Hatuey 1.55pm
It doesn’t bother me. They’re misguided and have no back up for their magical thinking. If it wasn’t so pathetic it would be sad. Despite screeds of assertion dressed up as fact, none of the “cunning plans for indy” adherents have ever managed to come up with any notable figures in any pertinent subject area whether legal, constitutional, historical or political to back up their claims that a non parliamentary route is feasible or would be accepted as legitimate.
We endure screeds of bullshit from the likes of James Che on their amateur hour ramblings about the Treaties of Union and how it doesn’t exist, or Alf Baird and his half baked comparisons with Scotland and real colonies and his splatter gun regurgitation of post-colonial theory, and none of ut amounts to a hill of beans.
There’s no appreciable support for their woo-woo either amongst Scots generally or amongst independence supporters. More importantly however, nobody in the international community cares. Again, they can provide zero evidence that they have reached out to any organisations, NGO’s, political movements, well connected individuals or to neutral legal, constitutional or political experts who might be expected to be keen to support their view if it is so self evidently strong, or even arguable.
How’s that going….? [insert tumbleweed GIF here].
All the ramblings about illegal unions, the lack of the union of the crowns, sovereign Scots and the treaty of union being invalid are just moonshine.
The fact is that even if an absolute smoking legal gun was actually found it would make absolutely no difference. The majority of Scots would probably just sat “that’s interesting” and go back to whatever they were doing.
You can find all sorts of legal quirks in the legal frameworks of most nations.
The only way that there is ever going to be independence is through a majority vote in a referendum, and the likelihood of that happening soon is essentially zero as most folk look ar the sh*t show that is the SNP and the sp and currently don’t want any more of that.
So smart-arse Ellis, how do you propose Scotland getting independence without recourse to international law, given all routes to a referendum have been shut down by Westminster and a Supreme Court that has no jurisdiction here (and that’s in the here and now, Joanna Cherry proved the power held by the Court of Session whilst stopping Boris proroguing Parliament)?
Ellis, you haven’t explained what difference it makes… that people believe in those alternative routes.
It’s not like they are distracting anyone from anything better. The constitutional route, with ballot boxes and angelic politicians, has failed us.
When the SNP failed us, your approach to independence also failed us.
In the cold light of day, alternative routes to independence now hold more promise than constitutional/legal routes. Thats not to say they are in any concrete sense promising in themselves, just that right now they have more viability relative to the party political route which couldn’t be more derailed than it is right now.
@Gordonisamoron 5.53pm
Plebiscitary elections dimwit. Happy to help.
@Ellis – how exactly can that happen? Westminster would simply ignore it, assuming it didn’t ban it or prevent the ballot. The local authorities could easily refuse to provide polling stations.
Al least you didn’t reply with your usual 3-words-where-1-would do to showcase your esoteric command of the English language
@Hatuey 6.06pm
I have explained. So weren’t you listening, are you just not bright enough to understand, or are you just being disingenuous? More than one or all might apply of course.
People believe in all manner of fantastical things. The fact their belief is fervent doesn’t render it true, not does it indicate that it has any widespread support or legitimacy.
The fact the SNP failed us does’t ipso facto mean the whole system can be jettisoned and replaced with some ill defined and novel process that hasn’t been used by anyone else, anywhere else, and which has negligible support either from the public or anywhere else whether academically or practically in terms of law, international relations or governance.
It’s just pie in the sky and desperate wish fulfilment.
If these alternative “cunning plans for indy” routes are such a sure thing, and all these folks are so confident not only that they’re feasible, but that they will become the choice of the majority, gain their support and be used to deliver independence….then great.
Go do. Show us the progress and demonstrate how it is going to work faster and be more effective than traditional means.
If you think any of these novel routes are going to deliver faster I think you’re delusional. I reckon they’ll actually take longer and delay independence, because those touting silver bullets and shortcuts are a small minority: so how long is it going to take to turn that in to majority support?
One of us is wrong. Time will tell which I guess, but I wouldn’t be betting the farm on your route working faster than mine.
@Gordonisamoron 7.06pm
Shall I use chubby chump crayons and draw you a picture instead? Would that be easier for you than words with too many syllables or complex sentences?
Westminster can’t cancel General Elections. If pro-independence parties stand on a plebiscitary platform and win a majority of the vote, and then meekly accept a Westminster veto then they deserve everything they (don’t) get.
You could make an argument local authorities might refuse to particiapte in what was regarded as an “illegal” or non S30 sanctioned referendum (and even that’s arguable) but there’s no such concern with respect to holding scheduled General Elections: it would be a stunningly bad look internationally and signify we no longer lived in a democracy.
If the Scottish people were prepared to meekly accept that, then they’re not likely to ever become independent.
“Signify we no longer live in a democracy” That’s obvious to the dogs in the street already – or do you think the recent GE was the epitome of democratic process
A plebiscite is a single issue election, so if you think the Scots can re-purpose a manifesto driven GE as that, fell free to campaign for it
@Gordonisamoron 7.46pm
Well, that IS the plan. Haven’t you been paying attention at all? British nationalists frustrating an agreed referendum inevitably means the independence movement will try alternative routes.
There is nothing in international law or precedent which says that self determination can only be realised via a referendum: plebiscitary elections are every bit as valid.
“So what…? Nobody abroad cares about Scotland’s colourful past, the Treaties of Union and the Convention of the Estates. They care about a majority of people voting for independence now in response to a clear question. They have no truck with all the constitutional navel gazing and frantic pin head dancing indulged in by the usual suspects in here.”
Nobody abroad cares, yeah right that’s why tourists flock in their hundreds of thousands to see Buckingham Palace and learn about English traditions and ancient laws, of which only recently we were “treated” to in crowning of the English king with all its English laws and traditions never mind its regalia.
All countries have their ancient laws and traditions that they care about, and Scotland isn’t any different, the cold hard fact that there wasn’t a legal union to begin with is very much at forefront on how Scots can negate what never was namely the union.
You don’t need a vote to leave a union that never was. I think they’ll be a fair amount of anger when the majority of Scots realise that they’ve been lied to all these years, not to mention the billions stolen from Scotland in assets by the foreign country of England.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
There is one major assumption being made by all the various parties here no matter what route they are proposing to get there.
The assumption that a majority of Scots actually want independence!
The recent high water mark on independence in 2014 where like many others I voted yes didn’t get the ball over the line had a higher chance than now.
In light of the performance of the SP in recent years a lot more work will need to be done before even getting back to that position, never mind exceeding it and creating a majority in favour.
@Rob 12.05 am
The issue Rob is that headline support for independence rather than the SNP as a party remains pretty solid. The average of polls still suggests it currently stands higher than the 45% achieved in indyref1, even if it hasn’t often exceeded 50%. The fact remains that given normal margins of error, the Scottish population s pretty evenly split.
As many of us have been pointing out for a while, one of the ways to invigorate the movement and to increase the current levels of support is to actually have a campaign and a coherent plan to achieve independence: plebiscitary elections are now the only plausible route due to British nationalist intransigence and the anti-democratic refusal of Westminster to honour the 20112 Edinburgh Agreement precedent.
No cunning plans, silver bullets or extra parliamentary routes are required. All of them would in any case take longer and be of doubtful legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, which is in the the end the platform that matters for achieving independence.
Of course, given recent events in the SNP and movement, formulating a plan and a campaign is going to take time. The SNP is now a barrier to the achievement of independence: it either needs to be bridled and changed or simply removed as the Irish removed the dysfunctional IPP in 1918. Nothing less than the latter will now do in my view.
Polls may say support is still there but other than on places like this I detect no enthusiasm in anybody I know about it.
Most of my contemporaries feel it was such a contentious and divisive issue in 2014 that they simply don’t even want to discuss it again never mind have a referendum.
The poor performance of the SP and the snp in particular in recent years has also reduced confidence in our ability to produce politicians worthy of the name.
I think it will be a long time before anything like 2014 is seen again.
@Rob 1.28pm
You may be right: a lot of folk are scunnered not just with Scottish politics, but with UK politics and the fact the world seems to be heading to hell in a handcart generally. Life comes at you fast though…and who knows what’s coming down the tracks that might change things?
A general sense of ennui given the SNP’s implosion and the poor performance of the Scottish Parliament doesn’t necessarily mean that people aren’t going to be more enthusiastic in the right circumstances. Five years of rule by Red Tories who are pretty indistinguishable from Blue Tories isn’t likely to decrease support for independence in my view.
If the movement can’t move the dial over the next few years, then the Scottish people have nobody to blame but themselves. It’s all very well sitting on the sidelines throwing rocks at our useless politicians or bemoaning the poor governance we endure, but if we ever want things to change it’s in our hands to change it.
Whatever route is chosen is less important than folk actually growing a pair and not settling for the status quo.
Perhaps what the past decade of stasis has shown us is that milquetoast nationalism is never going to lead to independence?
Woohoo! I got my hate crime monster pin badge yesterday! Looking forward to showing it off down here in England and explaining it to anyone daft enough to ask about it.
Being more topical, I’ve actually been thinking that it could be a Labour government (ironically) that could hugely increase support for Scottish independence. They’ve already proposed to wipe out the oil industry; they are supporting the trans madness that the Scots loathe; the Scots middle classes will be driven out of private schools by the VAT attack; new Labour employee protection policies will result in more unemployment in Scotland inevitably where enterprise opportunities are less widespread; and various taxes will be raised to fund their growth policies which will make Scotland taxes even more onerous.
I predict in 5 years time the Scottish electorate will resent the imposition of these socialist policies by the U.K. government and the desire to break away will increase substantially. So I’d suggest, as someone who doesn’t actually support independence, that it’s now time for Alba, or whoever is replacing the rotten corpse of the SNP, to start gearing up for this opportunity.
Clearly, the SNP think the Scottish electorate at large are stupid.
If they think they lost heavily because people were desperate to get rid of the Tories, what do they think we would be voting for if we voted SNP?
And they must also realise that we all know by now that if every single person in Scotland voted for SNP we’d still have a Labour government (and Tories kicked out).
“I predict in 5 years time the Scottish electorate will resent the imposition of these socialist policies by the U.K. government and the desire to break away will increase substantially.”
I suspect that if Labour do badly over the next couple of years to 2026 that the Lib Dems and even Reform will do well out of it as protest votes, both did better than expected in the GE.
The reason I say that is because the last GE and I suspect the SE are not about folk voting for what they actually want, but not voting at all or voting for the Least detested party.
That list is becoming shorter and shorter in Scotland and elections are becoming negative issues rather than for “change”
The independance snp voter’s have for 10 years been played for fools by Mr Embezzler n Mrs Fraudster
Replying to Rob:
I agree with you Rob about the Scottish electorate voting for those they detest the least as opposed to change, and if Labour make Scotland suffer as early signs indicate, then Labour will become detested as much as the Tories – and a decently organised and ethical independence party could easily capture the votes of these disaffected people because they’ll turn to independence as the only alternative option – votes for Lib Dems and Reform being wasted votes in Scotland.