We have the worst government in London in the history of the United Kingdom. We have the worst ever opposition party in the history of the United Kingdom. We have the worst set of politicians in the history of mankind sitting in Westminster. We have the insanity of Brexit causing untold damage to the economy and status of the United Kingdom.
We have a pandemic that has exposed the sheer incompetence and greed of the English politicians that control the British Union. The public throughout the islands of the British Isles can sense and see that the giant that was Great Britain is but a distant memory. What we have now is a crime syndicate of sociopaths and thieves running the countries of the Union. Never has that Union been weaker. Never has there been a better opportunity for the Celtic Nations to throw off the shackles of English enforced colonialism and partition.
There has never been more open revulsion of a Prime Minister and the governance of the Union. The people of the entire UK are openly contemptuous of the British Government.The rest of the world that used to fear the might of the British Empire laugh and make satire about the clowns running the UK now. Their dishonesty and willingness to break treaties and agreements are now known throughout the globe.
In Ireland, the Leader of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou McDonald is preparing her nation on both sides of the partitioned six counties for a border poll. Her party members have been receiving notifications and the plans for months now.The operation will kick in shortly after she inevitably becomes the next Taoiseach of Ireland. The latest polling has her Party 10 points clear of her nearest rivals. She has been to the United States preparing the ground there. President Biden and the American Congress have been advised of her intentions.There is no doubt that when the time comes, the Americans will be right behind the Irish. Only Anglo arrogance believes differently.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll-sinn-f%C3%A9in-opens-up-10-point-lead-as-most-popular-party-among-voters-1.4693054
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll-sinn-f%C3%A9in-opens-up-10-point-lead-as-most-popular-party-among-voters-1.4693054
In Wales, the First Minister, a Labour politician, Mark Drakeford has said that ‘no UK Prime Minister has the right to stand in the way of an independence referendum in either Scotland or Wales if the people wanted one.’ He is also in talks with Plaid Cymru towards a pact and has said that independence may need to be faced if Westminster continues to ignore Wales.
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Welsh leader warns United Kingdom is ‘over’ and says union should be ‘voluntary’
Our Celtic cousins seem well on the road to securing their nations are taken out of the greedy, grasping fingers of Westminster.
Scotland meanwhile is not even preparing the ground. There was a slight glimmer of hope at the weekend when Nicola Sturgeon was quoted as saying, ‘We need the Parties to unite.’ The only problem was the only party she mentioned was the British Labour Party in Scotland.(BLIS) Perhaps she was hoping that after decades of slavish devotion to Mother England, Anas Sarwar and the SLAB might follow, Mark Drakeford’s enlightened stance. Personally, I think there is more chance of Luxembourg winning the next two Football World cups. I do however agree with the First Minister’s words. The independence parties for certain need to unite. We also need the non-aligned voters to unite with us to end the 315-year-old abomination that is the Treaty of Union.
The leader of the SNP since November 2015 has rigidly stuck to the belief that a Section 30 Westminster approved Independence, Referendum using the Local Authority Electoral Register is the best way for Scotland to attain its independence. As most of you know I have opposed this as a strategy for quite sometime now.
There are several flaws with this idea. Number one and most importantly is the requirement to get permission from the English Tory Prime Minister to hold such a referendum. Second and equally dangerous to the outcome is the local authority register being mooted. We need a different franchise if we are to succeed. Allowing anyone and everyone, a vote on a Constitutional matter is wrong. What the threshold for a vote should be needs to be decided by the people of Scotland possibly with the good services of the United Nations and after suitable debate.
More importantly we require a route and a plan the entire nation can unite around. For whatever reason the leader of the SNP has not allowed her Independence Party to debate independence in the last six years. Not at Party Conferences or at the ruling NEC. That needs to change immediately. The independence movement needs to get talking to each other again.
What better forum for all these issues than an Independence Constitutional Convention? We need to find a suitable neutral sympathiser of Scottish Independence to head up this Convention. Someone that is acceptable to all threads of the Independence movement. Oh for a Jimmy Reid or Margo MacDonald in these times!
This Convention should be encouraged to discuss all the avenues to independence. They should take advice from constitutional lawyers and academics. Trade Unionists and community leaders, Ordinary members of the public should be welcomed to give their opinions too. We need to invite foreign diplomats and officials from bodies like UN, EU, EFTA to give us their opinions on our plans to leave the union.
We should also discuss and commission a new Scottish Constitution and when complete we should ask the people of Scotland to approve and or amend it accordingly. This should and could happen before any move towards independence. It will be easier to bring people with us if they know exactly what it is they are voting for. A written Constitution goes some way to addressing that.
At this Convention we should not be afraid to discuss the basics of independence, Currency, Borders, Affiliations, WMD and of course, a post independence new arrangement with our southern neighbour. This time though any deal will be one of two equals and will have a veto for either party.
This is the only way to drive our cause, forward and remove the blockages and inter party squabbling that is here today. It will need the First Minister as the leader of the largest independence party to make concessions and compromises. No personal feelings should be put ahead of the nation. I know I will work with anyone that is genuine about Scottish Independence. I can think of no better way to get our movement moving again, however, if you have any better ideas please share them.
The only people that could possibly disagree with this approach are those opposed to Scottish independence or those that sit under the independence banner at present with ulterior motives. Unity is strength and if we as a nation unite nothing, including Westminster can stop us!
Saor Alba gu brath.
BEAT THE CENSORS
Unfortunately a number of pro Indy sites have turned out to be merely pro SNP sites and have blocked a number of bloggers, including myself. We have managed to frustrate these efforts to close us down through our readers sharing our articles and building our audience.Sharing is very important and helps the Independence message to reach a much wider audience. In addition many have taken out free direct subscriptions. I very much appreciate this support.
Sturgeon has just earmarked £9 million quid of NHS funds for the genderwoowoo. While we still have foodbanks and waiting lists. The present SNP cabal are way beyond saving.
I would suggest Alba and the ISP set up a convention. And we can see Sturgeon and Sarwar stop their party members from attending. This may hurry her downfall but luxembourg are looking the better bet.
Apparently she thinks it’s terrible they need to go to England for gender re-assignment surgery. I think it’s terrible it’s covered by the NHS. If the £9million was going into psychological services fair enough, but no it’s going into cosmetic surgery.
Meanwhile because cancer screening services have all but been suspended, more people will die from breast, bowel and cervical cancer in the near future. Priorities, priorities…
Found this – retired nurse facing £3k charge for a NHS test to see if chemotherapy would work for her following breast cancer. She doesn’t want to risk taking it if it wouldn’t work as it would interfere with other drugs she takes. But at least she hasn’t been misgendered /sarc.
https://twitter.com/CrossgateCentre/status/1472888461317267462
PP: you are so, so right. Yes, spend the money on psychotherapy or, alternatively, spend it on services that all women need. Women’s lives are dominated from puberty onwards by, often, debilitating hormonal changes and imbalances: everything from severe period pains to infertility, from childbirth to post natal depression, from female cancers to the menopause. Instead, girls are being encouraged to have their healthy breasts removed and their wombs and ovaries removed. Jesus wept! What is wrong with people? Why not spend just a tiny fraction of the money on studying the real reasons that young women are going down this path and why women are prone to so much more examples and types of body dymorphia/dysphoria than men? Could it have anything to do with the over-sexualized world we inhabit, where females are seen as fodder for everything from the porn industry to prostitution?
I have been re-reading some of my favourite authors from another era, Dickens and Hardy among them. Their novels are so rich and full of empathy fr their female characters, yet both these men treated his respective wife with such abominable cruelty, it is hard to get your head round that any human being could treat another he had once, presumably, loved with such contempt and hatred. Each had, in mid-life, fallen for a young bit of stuff, as they say.
The bits of stuff, as young women who believe they will never age, are wont to be towards older females, were as bad in their disdain and lack of conscience. Mrs Dickens died in poverty, having been turfed out of the household (and she had sacrificed her own longings to be an author, borne Dickens 10 living children and at least two dead/miscarriages) and Mrs Hardy died alone in her attic bedroom while Hardy and his mistress were downstairs.
Anyone who doesn’t believe that this latest manifestation (at last at the front-line level) of male mid-life crisis and me-ism has everything to do with sex, all passion with no overlay of reason, is as mad as the proponents of this guff. Mad and cruel beyond reason. The females who support it are deluded and ignorant of female history to the extent that they will pay a very high price for their stupidity and lack of self-awareness. Self-mutilation will not serve the purpose of freeing them from female oppression, but it could lead to life-long dependency on medical interventions and early death, veritable ‘Frankenstein’s monsters’, which unscrupulous and, often, greedy professionals want to facilitate for reasons of their own. Think Harold Shipman. The males, who don’t tend to go in for surgery these days, will, of course, come out the other end, relatively unscathed. Surgically transitioned males, of course, do need to be given consideration and compassion, but not in the female estate.
It doesn’t seem so long ago when the world and UN were all up in arms about this genetelia mutilation in young African girls. Now we are encouraging mutilation of young girls in Scotland.The sane middle class types that now promote this mutilation if young S ottish children were horrified at it happening to African children. How did we get from there to here?
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/female-genital-mutilation
I think BB that we are actually going backwards in understanding our innate biology, and how we do not need to be a slave to it as we were in Neolithic times. There are no intellectual arguments for why society (Western here) should be set up as it is. In fact, it no longer makes sense that it should. Indeed, it no longer makes sense anywhere in the world in the 21st century, and has not made sense for at least a hundred and more years.
I could be very wrong, and I do not want to be accused of being anti male. It just so happens that it has been maleness that has benefited from the ways in which human society is ordered and has been ordered for millennia. What I am saying is that no longer makes any sense for the perpetuation of our species, and, is, indeed, anathema to the perpetuation of the species.
We need to deconstruct what the trans issue is before we can even start. It is not a homogenous mass, but, rather, is a series of interconnected alliances that all, without exception, are aimed at the greater benefit of males at the expense of women. It is very interesting that Richard Dawkins, himself a explainee of the biological benefits that males derive, and have always derived, at the expense and health of females.
Females en masse, across the globe, even today, receive a tiny fraction of the world’s resources, as opposed to the over 95% that males receive, ot take, is probably more appropriate. Of course, not all males receive a fair share either, and I think that what has happened today, even more than ever before in our history, is that the elite males have grabbed the lion’s share and left the more ordinary males to squabble over the rest.
They, the rest, predictably, see women with some resources and, being males, think that they are entitled to it. So, we have elite men (the corporate and wealthy stratum who are driving capitalism, wars, conflict but also industry and science and technology, too, so they are not drones, as such) and ordinary (middle-class) men who want more in any number of ways, sexual licence being one of them (and they, too, contribute and are not actually drones either).
Then, at the bottom of the male hierarchy, we have those men who have been sidelined and blame females because it’s easier and other men can hit back and, being resource-less also deprives them of what they perceive as their fair share of sexual favours, as well. In other words, this is completely a capitalist/sexual/men’s rights movement.
Why does it have to be like this? It doesn’t, of course. Many males are looking at women and seeing our advances as threats to them, and FGM is one of the ways in which women can be controlled sexually and in their fertility. Most males, regardless of status, see themselves as a cut above females. As with the trans issue, women are the handmaidens and aunts. It’s quite clever, really, and women, generation after generation, seem, by and large, to miss it: how they are controlled in their sexuality, and every other attribute, by males, many of who are far less able than they many of them are.
If women were able to control every aspect of themselves by themselves, the world would be a very different place, and one that few would recognise. Not because women are inherently better than men (we’re not) but because our priorities are very different, not so rooted in our sexuality and desperation for wealth and control and power (our individuality and self, in other words) as for ensuring the perpetuation of the species by best use of available resources – speaking generally, of course.
That is why males have sought, since the beginning of time, to control us by controlling our bodies, exploitation of our bodies, exploitation of our (largely, unpaid) labour and over our fertility. Our greatest biological weakness is our inability to match males for physical strength, and why we are forced to adhere to males while we raise children, espaecially when the state withholds resources from us to which we are entitled as half the human race.
When you look at this gender madness in that light, you should, if you have two braincells to spark off each other, see why it is so intrinsically dangerous to the human species as a whole and will, if not halted, initiate a division between females and males that will not be healed any time soon. Many women are not just angry as they have been for centuries, at their grossly unfair treatment, but dangerously enraged now. If it is true that American women (who can) are learning in their droves to handle a gun because of the imposition of self-ID, we are now on shifting sands – quick sands that could swallow us all. There is no compromise to this issue that will not see females being disadvantaged, so males need to understand that we might be approaching OK Corral territory when females will be forced to fight back in ways that neither envisaged.
Calling out porn-addled autogynephiles, as they flounce around denying their laughably-obvious proclivities, like toddlers caught with their hands in th sweetie jar, is just the beginning. Sorry if this comes across as anti male, but we have to face up to the realities of this trans movement for all of us before it is too late.
I would suggest Winnie Ewing to head up a convention if it were 10 years ago but, at 92 years of age that might be asking a bit much of her now. Jim Sillars at 84 years is a possibility – he is still active with a huge pedigree in Scottish and Independence politics over many decades.
Both remain members of the SNP and are of independent mind, both have the common touch and both would attract the attention of the media given their profile.
‘Saor Alba gu brath’ NEEDS be in the hearts of our TRUE believers and SUPPORTERS of our INDEPENDENCE being REGAINED! Surprisingly, there are many uncertain people in our electorate who still need to be better informed! Thankfully, many of our younger voters are already keen to see Scotland being independent and that’s great already while being an enthusiastic platform from which positive progress must surely grow!
Thanks for an excellent read.
I just wish more supporters of Sturgeon would read articles like this and then ask themselves why is the SNP not capitalising on the daily mayhem and chaos from Westminster.
In life and in politics you have to make the most of opportunities.
Everyone in Scotland whether they are into politics or not must be aware that the UK is in dire straights so what better time to push forward with the positives regarding Scotland`s independence in contrast to stagnating in Westminster`s hell hole.
I agree with Craig Murray when he says there’s no way to independence through London, as for the USA, I recall Obama, (who the Nobel Institute gave the Nobel Peace prize to in 2009, even though he hold the dubious record of being POTUS longest at war, his entire tow-terms) say in a press conference that Ireland was great wee country that had done well for itself, and in the next breath after David Cameron had pushed a note into his hand at the same press conference, say of Scotland that it would be better off remaining part of the union. The USA will, and I’m sure it has been actively opposing Scottish independence, unlike Irish reunification, Ireland has friends in high places across the pond again unlike Scotland.
As we all know the S30 route leads nowhere, so why keep pushing it as Sturgeon is doing, yes the indy movement needs to unite, but no matter how united we become, we’re going nowhere under Sturgeon, this is the elephant in the room that needs to be addressed.
Sturgeon is hell-bent on the destruction of Scotland. So, if we don’t dismiss her and the empire-loving Westminster politicians soon, we won’t have a country to take back. Let’s just do it. Those wise people in the SSRG are perfectly capable of leading the way. And there are many highly educated academics – Alf Baird for instance – who have already shown that they are ready and willing to offer advice when required. There is nothing to stop SCOTLAND becoming FREE once more.
Had Sinn Fein field more candidates in the Eirean elections, that party would be in power there now, and she would already be Taoiseach. The other parties are pro UK/status quo and have introduced nothing new or innovative for donkey’s years. A valuable lesson on their future, and one for us, too. I’m not sure about another constitutional convention because it looks as if another referendum is dead in the water, anyway, and whatever we do now has to be a departure from what has gone before. A constitutional convention tasked with working out a route to independence that body-swerved a referendum could work, though.
The problem with the SSRG route to independence as I see it is logistics, So we declare the treaty of union rescinded or annulled or whatever you call it , what then? how do we go from making the declaration to physically enacting it we have nothing in place, no central bank, no standing army, no border control, no civil service and it’s pretty dubious who the police ultimately take their orders from.
My guess is as soon as the declaration is made the UK prime minister (whoever he/she is at the time) will declare it illegal, and they can shut us down in a heartbeat.
Sure it would carry a lot of legal weight if voted on by a majority of the elected representatives of the country but how long will that tie us up it court battles.
I hate pouring cold water on it because I love their plan and I’d love to be wrong but it’s just how I see it
It will take 2 years from withdrawal to independence. Just as in 2014 we have that time to set everything up. Many of those things you mention we have templates already. A National Investment Bank is a necessity that we can start now with a view to switching it to a Central Bank from Day one. The Scottish Regiments and our share of the military is part of those 2 years of negotiation. We have a civil service we just need to change its line management, again from day one. These are all small beer.
International recognition of a declaration of independence seems to be the single most important factor regarding independence. While the systems of an independent Scotland clearly need to be ready for it, you’d also need an elected group of political leaders to negotiate the terms of separation from the UK and then have an independence date that would be widely accepted around the world. Without a leadership that would be accepted as such by other nations, I fail to see how international recognition could be achieved.
I also think this is what the SNP have since 2015, seen as their trump card and why they are so desperate to block any challenge to their current ‘carrot dangling’ position. They think they hold the key to independence and currently they do. The current SNP MP’s/MSP’s have proven themselves to fully support Sturgeon’s personal populist stance. Regardless of what national management systems are ready to go, I don’t see a path to independence as long as the current SNP can continue to block it, and that means them having the continued voter support to be in a position to do so. Like it or not, the SNP are the political representatives of Scotland and if they don’t want to seriously push for independence, then not only is it unlikely to happen, but the critical international acceptance (or even expectation) of an independent Scotland won’t happen as long as they are.
Whether clear evidence of a substantial fall in voter support for the SNP would be enough force change from within the SNP is a big unknown. Other party’s drop their leaders when they start doing more harm than good (for the party). It’s hard to see Sturgeon being immune to that, but even without her populist stranglehold on the party, that would still mean that the SNP would fundamentally need to switch away from her ‘gradualist’ (devolutionist?) and isolationist position to a truly independence seeking party willing to work with others to achieve it.
The SNP like to position themselves as the only option for independence. So far in terms of votes, that has worked. Only independence seeking voters can (mistakenly) make that continue, or by opening their eyes and not blindly voting SNP, wake the SNP up and get them to do what they claim to want. I don’t see Alba totally replacing the SNP any time soon, although I do expect them to become a major force. My biggest hope is that support for the SNP starts to seriously collapse and causes them to revert to what they were pre 2015 and that then a combination of SNP & Alba votes would lead Scotland to Independence, with the necessary political leadership that would be needed internationally to have it recognised. Only then can the various systems of an independent Scotland be put into practice.
Ian: I would have to agree with much of that. International recognition will be crucial for an independent Scotland to thrive as part of the international community. Sturgeon is very reminiscent of Redmond, of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which was eventually overtaken and superseded by Sinn Fein, and the SNP right now is almost a twin for the IPP in its stasis and inertia.
Redmond was an appeaser – to the British and to NI – and there was no real way that such a leader and such a party could ever convince anyone that independence was looming. It did take 18 years, of course, but we simply do not have 18 years. The priority now must be to oust Sturgeon and her cohort and supersede the SNP. It might not yet be time, but the foot-draggers and pseudo ‘wokerati’ will play themselves out of the game.
ALBA and the other independence parties have to walk a tightrope, I think, to not alienate SNP members while they alienate their voting for the party. It’s a difficult call, but it has to be made. Another few years, and it will be impossible to throw off the yoke. Redmond, like Sturgeon, would have appeased to the end of time, and delayed Irish independence needlessly for footering niche policies and sectionalism, just like her, too. In the end, anger at the stasis overcame Irish voters and they voted for Sinn Fein and independence. Sturgeon is playing a no-win game here. If she presses ahead with GRA reform, it will be the issue that will destroy her.
There is nothing ‘in place’, but much of that work has been done already, by CommonWeal, SSRG, also Dr Tim Rideout. Sorry but why would we need a standing army from the get-go? We have no natural enemies (apart from England, and I say that from the point of view they won’t be at all happy about things & if that is why you feel we need one, I’m sure UN or EU would help us out there). Tim Rideout has Central Bank & currency under control, SSRG are working on a Constitution & they’ve outlined exactly how to go about getting Indy & timings for what needs done & when. CommonWeal have lots of papers on how to start up a Post-Indy Scotland… It’s all there, ready & waiting…
As soon as the declaration is made, the UK/WM can kick & scream as much as it wants, but if ‘the people’ have chosen to go that way, what WM does and says is irrelevant and they cannot ‘shut us down’. The Claim of Right, which WM ratified in 2018, backs that up. And given their stance on Independence, I’m sure that appeals to the UN to provide Scotland with a safety net of legal (and possibly ‘other’) support, could be forthcoming.
Another route is needed, there are plenty of them to choose from & sitting waiting on unionists to do it for us is not going to give us Independence. This is something WE SCOTS have to do & we have to get up off our seats & DO IT. We can’t continue to sit & say, “But WM won’t let us leave!” That is NOT for WM to decide.
I will not vote SNP while Sturgeon leads it and the Cult dominate it’s policies.
The Wheesht for Indy approach will never attract me. The Cult has to go.
We should have one unifying campaign…Independence.
Roddy, the only way we have of getting any chance of unity in the yes movement,is for sturgeon and her traitorous cult cult to be exposed to the people and then destroyed. A punishment fit for traitors. There is only one person who can do this and powerful enough to do it.
But I get the impression that he is afraid to do it. It really is time to take the gloves aff,for Scotland’s sake.
Once he exposes their treachery to him and Scotland, the people will flock to their real guardians banner, and to Scotland’s.
I understand your frustrations, Tony. But impressions can be deceiving, my God! Especially in politics, as we all know.
“Afraid” is not a word I would ever use to describe that man’s position. It’s not in his psyche. Rather, I believe he has weighed up the consequences, either way. And decided, at least for now, the odds are not in favour of what would be seen by many within the SNP, as an unforgivable, treacherous act. Thereby creating division.
Better to steer Roddy’s path of unity, I think.
Clenched teeth……
SNP made appointment “Jobs for the mates” is not suitably qualified , Scotland is being run down by the incompetent SNP and nobody else https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-59730295
That sounds all too like the Westminster system of jobs for cronies – think Dido, Queen of Carnage. Surely Scotland can do better!
SNP really know how to lose votes. The decision at the Park of Keir to allow development against massive rejection by locals shows how easy it is. Instead of waiting to implement their favoured policies in an independent Scotland, under devolution they have introduced a good number of hair brained schemes that ostracise voters.
When if ever will they adopt a single minded strategy for independence. The SNP has had plenty of time to exhibit competent government and it is starting to go wrong.
Fundamental change of direction is required.
And leadership, Alin.
Rot in any organisation, always sets in from the top.