If we were ever going to win an Independence referendum, it should have been held Autumn, 2016, spring, 2017.The immediate aftermath of Brexit was the absolute optimum opportunity for us. Nicola Sturgeon for whatever reason thought it was better to make common cause with English Remainers rather than concentrate on Scottish self-determination. Opinion polls were in our favour. The public were ready and so was the entire Yes Movement. Everyone was united as one, well except the defacto leader of the YES Movement. She had other more pressing agendas. It was just at that time none of the rest of us knew that.
Every other week the independence movement were marching on the streets of Scotland. Instead of addressing these patriots, Sturgeon was talking to English voters in Trafalgar Square or marching with the Gay Pride marchers in England and Scotland, never with the AUOB crowds.
The Woke takeover of the SNP and the political narrative crept up on us all without warning. It is a tiny clique that has poisoned the SNP well permanently. Sturgeon had the 100% loyalty and trust of everyone involved in the independence struggle. Her dalliance with Stonewall and the Gender bullies has shattered that forever. She and her supporters might not accept it yet, however she is damaged goods. She cannot ever unite the movement. She is incapable of unity, division is her modus operandi.She needs to step aside for the good of the cause.
Since that perfect time in 2016-17 we have had the Alex Salmond fit up trial. The gerrymandering of the NEC and candidates lists. The woven accounts and missing £600k ring fenced funds. Mark Hirst falsely arrested. A Judicial Review slamming the government and costing the Scottish tax payer upwards of £1million in legal costs.The Fabiani Inquiry farce making Scotland and its legal system a global laughing stock. It also managed to show the First Minister as a highly dishonest, evasive individual. The wrongful imprisonment of pro independence journalist Craig Murray continues to shame us all. The campaign of bullying and harassment against movement favourite Joanna Cherry, as well as every other woman that stands up for her rights is a disgrace. The arrest of Marion Miller, The Hate Crime Bill, GRA reform. The mass exodus of the activist core from the party, most of whom have since joined Alba Party. It is a complete shambles and it has all happened on Sturgeon’s watch!
In May this year we had another election and another chance at independence. Instead of using it as a platform for independence, Sturgeon used it as an opportunity to attack Alex Salmond and the 5,000 ex-SNP activists that had defected to the Alba Party. Unfortunately, her both votes SNP strategy merely enabled the Unionists to win 32 seats at Holyrood.It did nothing to push forward the case for our independence.
The gloating by SNP that they had crushed another independence party was frankly, nauseating. It made a bad situation worse and ruined the only chance we ever had to reunite the entire movement. Those that promoted this policy still refuse to accept responsibility for the Unionists Holyrood success. The reality is that Sturgeon’s inability to accept the decision of the jury at Alex’s trial has damaged the Independence cause.
We have seen the SNP employ the author of the Vow. There has also been a vindictive and ongoing campaign against the pro independence media. Coincidence or life long unionist influence inside the SNP? Meanwhile, the anti-Scottish MSM were given a £3,000,000 financial stimulus by SNP government. This same anti independence media are also given preference and daily slots at the First Minister’s press briefings. The pro-independence media are excluded.
Daily, those that are the most anxious to progress the Scottish case for independence come under constant attack from the Sturgeon loyalists. Her young team of trans allies take great pleasure in ensuring voices of reason in the independence, and women’s rights debates, are silenced.
Independence has been sidelined by Nicola Sturgeon in favour of Stonewall’s Gender policies. The YES Movement once so united and organised is now a hollowed out shell of its former self.
The harsh reality that needs to be faced is this, in the unlikely event Boris Johnson was ever to agree to an Independence referendum, we would lose it. I truly believe it would be by a greater margin than in 2014.
The reasons are many and complex, firstly Sturgeon’s destruction of the YES movement. You need campaigners for months to sustain a referendum campaign.The 2014/15 influx of members and careerists has rotted the core and ethos of the SNP and movement. The vast majority of MPs and MSPs since that time are nothing more than grifters and seat warmers, with a few notable exceptions.The majority of them are comfortable with the status quo and the the fat salaries and expenses. Life in London and Holyrood for the elected is secure. There is no threat to their employment, salaries or expenses. That only applies to the plebs. They have no worries until the next time they need your vote. That is when Nicola brings out the independence carrots. The few that do speak up for independence are either in the Alba Party or sitting on the SNP back benches at Westminster.
When did you last hear your SNP MP or MSP make an impassioned plea for independence? (Angus Brendan and Joanna Cherry excepted, ergo sitting on back benches!) Nicola Sturgeon has surrounded herself with rather dull, incompetent, useless acolytes who are way too inept or cowardly to speak out as the party and movement are destroyed.
The Party has done no preparatory work to wage an Independence referendum. The Draft Referendum Bill still sits at Holyrood gathering dust.There has been no work on the bill since March! There is no money, no area organisers training up members or YES groups. There has been no work done on the issues that hurt us in 2014, Currency, EU, Defence, Constitution, Foreign Policy. Instead of working on these issues Sturgeon prefers to see SNP and Scottish Government departments adopting Stonewall approved pronouns for their emails.Worst of all, there has been no attempt to unite the YES family.
Adopting a four nations approach to Covid has proved a disaster for Scotland. While New Zealand can be proud that their actions have seen only 26 deaths, Scotland has the shame of 8013 dead Scots. How anyone can say Sturgeon has had a good Covid, beats me. Following Boris Johnson every step of the way has been a disaster. Now she tells us she wants a four nation approach to Scotland’s oil!! There is nothing she won’t sell out to remain in the spotlight!
Lastly, and most importantly is another reason we will lose any referendum. It is the voting franchise. Yesterday I came upon a nice little video that explains exactly why we will lose. It was made by Davey a really nice Yorkshire lad that moved to Scotland with his mum three years ago. He has completely bought into Scotland and our cause for independence. His heartfelt plea to fellow Yorkshire men and women as well as other English people to make the same journey as he has done is touching and heartfelt. His motives are pure, the problem is we know Davey is in a minority. In 2014, 80% of those born in England voted No to independence. I personally don’t blame them, if I was in the reverse position of Scotland having England as a colony and I was given a vote on Edinburgh continuing to run England or English independence I would vote for Edinburgh every time.
I blame us for allowing it. No other nation in the world allows foreign nationals a say in their constitutional affairs. (I would make exceptions for anyone that has lived, worked and paid taxes in Scotland for a minimum of 10 years. That though is a debate for another day.)
The most worrying part of Davey’s video is the part where he informed us that since 2016, 200,000 migrants from Yorkshire alone have transplanted themselves into Scotland! Do the math even if another 20% of those Yorkshire folk are as enlightened as Davey it still means the No side has gained another 160,000 No votes since 2016. That is just from Yorkshire, what about the people from other parts of England?
https://twitter.com/heyheyadaibhi/status/1425126573267619842?s=19
Since 2014 this means that Scotland is slowly but surely being turned into an ‘English Plantation.’ The Welsh know all about that, parts of Wales, for example, the Gloucestershire and Cheshire border areas of Wales are more English than Welsh, same with the entire M4 corridor. These parts of Wales are where you have the largest objection to the Welsh language and culture. Wales in the main has been Anglofied.
In Northern Ireland’s six occupied counties it was and is still referred to as a Plantation. It is these descendants of Scots and English protestants of 16th and 17th century that helps keep the island of Ireland partitioned and divided. I doubt though that will be the case for very much longer. Indeed, I expect a reunification in Ireland long before Scottish independence.
I understand these real issues will be difficult if not impossible for some to face up to, however it is the reality of our situation.
There is a solution and it is this, stop all talk and reference to an Independence referendum. The only way for us to win our freedom democratically is by way of a plebiscite election. Indeed if in 2019 UK General Election or 2021 Holyrood Election the SNP had made either an independence plebiscite election we would just now be negotiating our withdrawal from the union. Instead, we are facing food shortages and exclusion from our biggest markets in Europe.
We need to focus on the 2023/24 UK General Election. All our efforts must now be to win a majority of seats at Westminster, which we then refuse to take up. Instead, the day after the victorious election we call a Scottish Grand Assembly in Edinburgh and announce our withdrawal from the Treaty of Union and our independence. For added democratic legitimacy the SNP could have all their FPTP Holyrood MSPs resign and hold by elections on the same day as UK General Election. There could be no bigger or better way to signal to the world that Scotland wishes self-determination, not English subjugation.
There are other obstacles to achieve before we can commence this strategy. I am sure they are obvious to everyone. First and foremost we need a leader of the Independence movement that can unite us. Someone who has as their first and only priority Scottish Independence, not Stonewall points! We all need to buy into this course of action and give our upmost effort in achieving a victory for Scotland.
Many of you may disagree with my strategy, and that is your right. If you have any better ideas I sure would like to hear them. I am open to be convinced on the best way forward for Scotland, are you?
Indeed, referendums were never needed. Prior to devolution the legally touted method was simply to elect a majority of pro-indy Scottish MPs to the parliament of GB. Nothing else required. No excuses necessary. For the English establishment supporters and those that cite English government approved sources rather than Scotland’s, you even have the English attorney general stating in parliament that a state cannot be held in a treaty against its will. And what is Scotland? It is a sovereign nation state that merely ratified an international trade agreement in 1707. It has always had the inalienable right to dissolve the treaty especially if it no longer benefited Scotland. Well, it has been proven to not only be irideemably unbenefical but breached to the point that it no longer resembles the treaty that was agreed upon. As the Agreement is beyond recognition no plebiscite is needed. A party to an Agreement has the right to dissolve an Agreement that has been fundamentally breaches and/or altered especially if the breach or alteration benefits the other party to the detriment of the other. As is the case between Scotland and England.
It could also be argued that the Scots have repeatedly given their consent to dissolve the treaty since 2015 with 56/59 MPs elected and in subsequent GEs where a majority of “pro-indy Scottish MPs were elected to the parliament of GB”. There is no need to make ONE day, the day of the election, the day that counts (no pun intended). Each and every day the Scottish government is imbued with Scots sovereignty, to act on behalf of the country as a whole and to carry out the primary obligations of a government. Those obligations have nothing to do with party manifestos but rather the protection of its people’s rights, its territory and from attack whether economic, cyber or physical. The Scottish government should be defending Scotland every single day and that includes from their treaty partner. The Scottish government has failed on all accounts. But what is worse is that many Scots believe that the Scottish government is powerless to do anything as they falsely believe the English government has dominion over Scotland. The fact is though, it has none. It is the failure of the Scots to hold their own to account and to demand that they either act in their true capacity as equal partners with equal authority to the state or dissolve it.
I agree totally, Roddy. With Sturgeon & Co wilfully destroying everything they touch, I fear for the future of our country. We Scots must rise up and take control.
Surely the same franchise issue with a plebiscite? Riggarendum not the way to go. SNP needs wholesale clearout but who will do it? Meanwhile cosy gender woowoo pact with carpet bagging greens. Alba needs to rise and fast and we need a majority on a mandate to end the union. We also need clear whatsinitforme simple messaging. Example triple your state pension, own currency, nationalised and subsidised power, free prescriptions, no bed tax, guaranteed for life. council tax freeze etc.
I really can’t see any way forward. I’m in a village where I struggle to hear a Scottish accent and, while some are supportive, most just think they have moved to a different part of England. They are clever enough to vote for the SNP in Scottish elections to preserve their free prescriptions and free tuition for their uni kids but would never vote Yes in a referendum. They get themselves immersed into community activities and act like we were never able to do anything until they arrived. I’m not a TV watcher myself but they seem to have the attitude that everyone should be out doing something every night – this in an area where, for many years, people made their own entertainment and where many are at an age now where they have done it all before and are happy to stay at home at night and flop in front of the telly.
My partner, who has a Scottish parent, moved here nearly 30 years ago. He is a huge supporter of independence and refuses to be called anything but Scottish and is the one who is most likely to be heard to mutter “bloody incomers” under his breath.
I’ve always believed that everyone of voting age in a country should get a vote and was appalled to discover that EU citizens could not vote in UK general elections. I can see though now how this has been used against us and, like you, I don’t think we would now come anywhere near to winning another indyref.
There is no way the current SNP would contemplate any other route to indy and, as we seem to be lumbered with a nation of Sturgeon worshippers, I just don’t know how we get rid of them.
Unfortunately even her genderwoo nonsense is only likely to push voters into supporting the Tories – which won’t help us at all.
Sorry Roddy – can’t offer any solutions – and while I wholeheartedly approve of your solution, I can’t see it happening.
For me the dream has died,
I agree that we should abandon the referendum route: it will be gerrymandered either by population plantation or caveats from, and concessions to, WM for being permitted to use the ‘Gold Standard’.
I would agree with the pleb-election approach, but with a single proviso. Namely, that our politicians who stand must do so on a clear and absolute abstentionist platform. That way, we have the people’s support. They are sovereign and this must be their will.
An utter rejection of the designed-to-fail Referendum route to independence, must be denounced by all at every available opportunity. This has to be in tandem with a targeted campaign of civil-defiance (not civil “disobedience”; the latter being what naughty children might be accused of). Crucially, Alba must adopt the approach and the analysis that is available to all within Professor Alfred Baird’s book, Doun – Hauden. Which means fighting the case for Scottish independence from the unadorned position of an anti-colonialist struggle; because in the final analysis, that’s precisely what the struggle for Scottish independence amounts to, and always has.
I agree with your post especially about NEVER holding another referendum, we should never have held the first one either. But if Scots vote again for the SNP in the next GE, they are voting to remain part of WM. The SNP MPs are so settled there, with their high salaries, great pensions, expenses, and subsidised meals, WHY would they ever want INDEPENDENCE now.. Look at Wishy Washy Pete, his ambition is to one day be SPEAKER in WM.. You would have thought that would have told his constituents more about him..
Our only hope is if ALBA & ISP between them clean up at the next GE.. We need to do to these SNP losers what we did to Labour.. MOVE them out..
Hopefully both ALBA & ISP will take a few local seats on at the council elections next year also.. Maybe then the cowards on the back benches who sit in the Scottish Parliament, Will see the threat to THEIR cushy careers coming down the track.. And jump on the bandwagon of the new parties in town.. (NOT that I would want any of them in the new parties other than voting for them or members to boost our numbers, But never let them near HR again)
There is NO way voting SNP from here on in. Is going to benefit Scotland anymore. Whether that be at local elections, HR elections or WM elections. If we can send 56MPs from Scotland that represent the real & new INDY Parties we can start the shouting at least.. But do it from Scotland, never take up any seats in that den of corruption..
Sturgeon went down to England to campaign against Brexit because she wanted to remove the mandate for an independence referendum. That was her motivation.
She will never deliver independence because she doesn’t want it.
Very curious to know where the figure of 200,000 immigrants from Yorkshire comes from. Never seen it quoted anywhere, and it sounds bogus to me. It might be real, but I doubt it, and will not believe it until I see exactly where it comes from.
Next years census will reveal much, it is suggested an extra 500,000 English immigrants have crossed the border in search of a better life.
I have noticed a lot more English accents these days. Game’s a bogey, everything is fucked. And Sturgeon will never be forgiven.
I have to chime in on this figure of 200,000 but then Daibhi actually says “over 200,000 and is increasing”. That doesn’t sound very thought through to me…
Yorkshire as a county has just over five million people. Are we really saying that over 1 in 25 people from this one county have moved to Scotland in just five years? As the populations are roughly the same, are we now being asked to accept uncritically that 1 in 25 to 30 people living in Scotland are actually Yorkshire folk and that this happened in just five years. I mean it’s not as if Yorkshire is a poor post-communist state with no opportunities and creaking infrastructure. It’s a county people retire to – towns like Harrogate – and cities like Leeds have done well in the last 30 years.
As for hearing more English accents, that’s just an anecdote and not really a firm basis for this type of discussion. There has to be more to this story than just an impressionistic suspicion. Alf Baird mentioned 50,000 a year heading North from England, not Yorkshire, but then I seriously doubt Alf’s figure as well. I know where he got it from but I’m not convinced he’s made the correct extrapolation from it.
So where are all these people working or retiring to? Unless I’ve missed it, there’s nothing like the houses being built for such an influx of people, so for the substantial part of the Scottish population (not confined of course just to those identifying as Scots) that’s already here and is having to compete in the housing and jobs markets with all these new incomers, where are they being displaced to? Where’s the hunners of anecdotes about Scots not being able to find the right job or the right house? I’m not hearing or reading about them.
Come the census, I think we’ll find some additional tens of thousands but not these alarmist numbers. If we want to pursue the discussion properly, we need a proper statistician, an expert in demography and how population statistics are calculated. Any McStato out there? Care to weigh in?
I’m also aware that Ineos in Grangemouth are and have been actively recruiting workers from Yorkshire and NE England at the expense of Scots workers as some kind of kickback against Sturgeon by Jim Radcliffe
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Cool the beans.
There is no way – none – that 200k people have come from Yorkshire to live in Scotland. If the next census says that, I’ll wear an England football top with the name Thatcher on the back in public every day for a year.
Yorkshire’s population is not much less than 10% of England’s, over 5m. 200k is 4% of 5m. If general English immigration into Scotland ran at just half the rate of that one particular county, and England’s population is 56m, 2% of that is over 1m – 1,120,000.
And are these supposed to be in addition to the c.500k English that were reckoned to be in Scotland at the last census and and at the indyref? If so, that’s more than 1.6m English now in Scotland. Just under a third of the population.
Behave.
The article is spot on and I have almost given up hope. Alba could be the way but I have an underlying feeling the name and leader are not what we require.
Alex Salmond really should stand down. He gave it a good go,but carries far too much (unfair) baggage now and is a liability.
Sorry to say but it looks to me that WGD made a business decision to corner the market in blogging for Sturgeon loyalists.
There should be a law against scamming Independence supporters.
You can argue about the number of people crossing the border to live in Scotland for as long as you like but I can tell you that young Highland people find it very difficult now-a-days to either rent or buy a house in the Highlands.
Why? Extortionate prices due to people buying second homes or moving here to retire. Many of the newcomers have English accents, some haven’t. But where ever they come from, it’s a huge problem for local people.
We cannot afford to wait until the next GE. The SNP have had so many mandates I have lost count. We do not need a referendum. A national assembly should be called without delay and withdrawal from the Treaty of Union announced immediately. No need to wait for the end of the pandemic we know business can continue while online and at home. If the First Minister can not handle that she should resign and let someone else take over. No more excuses. Any further delay and postponement should be treated as treason, they have the mandate, use it!
“Alex Salmond really should stand down. He gave it a good go,but carries far too much (unfair) baggage now and is a liability.”
Can’t agree with that Graham – Alex has been smeared, vilified, his character trashed and put through the wringer precisely because he is the most able politician in Scotland – the establishment fear him, Westminster fears him and SNP and Sturgeon fear him which is why they’ve gone to such great lengths to smear him.
I believe people are already questioning Sturgeon’s commitment to Indy and the truth about the plot against Salmond , the sooner the truth about the whole debacle comes out the better.
The SNP have brainwashed a lot of their supporters but I do believe there is a good proportion of the population who are beginning to realise that Sturgeon has feet of clay, and that under her leadership there will be no independence referendum in the near future.
People joined the Alba party, a lot of whom were life long ex SNP activists, because of Alex Salmond – 6000 plus people and the party is growing – they didn’t all rush to join ISP or AFI -and as Indy supporting parties they could have just as easily done that.
They joined Alba BECAUSE of who was leading the party,
We need to have the courage of our convictions and face these detractors down – the last thing we should do is turn on the very person who has more political acumen, than all the Scottish government put together. Capitulating to people because they don’t like Alex Salmond is a foolish thing to do – they’ll be the same people who NEVER liked Alex Salmond in 2014! They were wrong then and they are wrong now!
We need to stick up for Alex and face down the destructive media narrative around him – they fear him and by association they fear Alba -which is why the Alba party has had the courage of their convictions and principles and has chosen Alex Salmond unopposed as leader, the only man who has ever managed to negotiate successfully with the British state and get what he wanted.
The independence movement needs his skill, his political tactics, his negotiating skills and his confidence in the fight for our independent future – abandoning him sends out the wrong message – it sends out the message that we Scots. don’t actually have the self confidence to move forward, build the case for independence and pull this off .
Comment of the day, week, month, year and decade!
Heather, spot on comment. Ditching Salmond is exactly what Sturgeons gang of crooks wanted.
Well said Heather.
Fair enough. I know how good he is, which is why the demented FM and her Rocky Horror Picture Show (as we should now rename the SNP) swarmtroopers attacked him. It’s tragic, vile, and disgusting. But the attacking has had a negative effect, and he was divisive before it all. I don’t know. Tired of thinking about it all.