FROM NOON SUNDAY.
Well, that was the week that was! One of the biggest political bombshells in many a long year. For those of us solely focused on Scottish Independence this ending of the Bute House Agreement between the SNP and Green Party was a great turning point. When Sturgeon first mooted her plan to enter this agreement this show and its panel opposed the idea. Even then we warned that this would not end well. It actually gives no pleasure to say ‘we told you so.’
Too many times the voice of not just this podcast but the voices of the grassroots have been ignored by the SNP. Immediately after their removal the Greens were showing their true colours. Independence is not a core belief of theirs., It never was, they have used it as a means to gain votes and power. Environmental issues are not even their raison d’etre. Gender issues that have brought the SNP to the verge of destruction have always been the prime motivator for Harvie’s Green Party, nothing else.
The panel this week consists of Eva Comrie, Lloyd Quinan, Phil Boswell and two special guests, Iain Lawson of Salvo and Neil Mackay of AUOB. The panel discusses in great length the end of the BHA and the likely consequences and fallout of this action by the SNP.
We highlight that the Greens reaction to the Cass Review and the subsequent halting of Puberty Blockers to children seems to have been the trigger to break the alliance between the two parties.
Other topics are also discussed including the SNP’s own report into Wood Burning Stoves V Heat Pumps. This once again highlights that the Greens have an uncanny knack of getting everything wrong and absolutely nothing right!
The controversy around the Hate Crime Bill continues. This week Police Scotland announced that only 1% of the thousands of complaints made are ‘worthy of investigation.’ Another told you so moment! The panel discusses if this legislation should just be scrapped now before it causes the SNP embarrassment further down the line?
The new Justice Bill which includes the ending of jury trials as well as removing the Not Proven verdict is already in difficulty. No less than 62 MSPs, including six prominent SNP lawmakers abstained from the first reading. Should the SNP drop this Bill before it becomes just another banana skin for them?
Also this week Humza raged at Westminster for not including Scotland in legislation to pardon Scottish Postmasters wrongly convicted over the Horizon scandal. The panel asks if these Postmasters were convicted using Scottish Justice should the same Justice system not be used to determine any innocence or guilt? Why do we need English lawmakers to sort out this miscarriage of justice?
In England the Labour Party was extolling the news that it is the true party of ENGLISH PATRIOTISM! We ask, will this be the wake up for any Scots contemplating a vote for this English based party?
The Rwanda Bill was written into being this week when the King signed it into law. Even Charles Windsor was repulsed by this modern day human trafficking and slavery legislation. However, he didn’t use his prerogative he could have just refused to sign it into law!
Our last discussion revolved around the news that Peter Murrell was given 48 hours notice by Police Scotland of his impending arrest and charging on matters relating to the missing £633,000 of ringfenced funds entrusted to the SNP. We ask if all criminal suspects in Scotland are given such treatment?
It leaves us wondering if any other Scottish citizen has over this weekend been given a similar notification. Tune in next Sunday to find out.
Lots of topics this week, Roddy. Excellent as always.
1. Kate Forbes is as sleek it as they come.
2. climate change targets always impossible to attain.
3 no one in SNP stands out as fit for office of FM and few fit for office as MP/MSP in current situation
4. we need unity from independence parties and whole movement, but, if SNP cannot achieve that, then they must go.
5. like everyone else, I am pulled two ways: short-term Unionst government to rediscover why we voted for independence; or try and persuade the SNP to clear out the parasites and devolutionists at and near the top. Even short-term Unionism would bring more misery for our people.
6. Lloyd spot on. No party has the wherewithal for an extra election. Most of this is posturing, with Sarwar risking a punt on winning easily if another election is called. I wouldn’t be so sure. Labour is just as likely to push the gender nonsense as the SNP/Greens have done.
7. Iain is right: the SNP could make huge inroads into pulling people back to the party if they clean out the coat-tailers and start to rebuild independence with the other parties and movements. Will they, though? Doubtful. Nobody in the party with the requisite nous to admit that She Who Must Be Obeyed was completely wrong. Totally out of touch with the people, as Eva says. If they don’t clean themselves up and rediscover their raison d’être, they will be gone completely by 2026.
8. Freeports are a massive mistake – for the Uk as a whole, but, particularly, for Scotland. Iain is right on this. Even many of those within the independence movement simply do not understand the Treaty of Union bestowed nothing in the way of superiority on England or on the UK of GFB. They just do not seem to get it: the Treaty was one between two independent nations states that created a new political union, but it did not pass Scottish territory to England or vice versa, and it did not pass Scottish territory to Westminster and there British State. People need to get their heads round that. She also need to get our heads round the fact that the Crown in Scotland (separate from the Crown in England) holds so much of our coastal land/seabed rights, as well as much of our terrestrial land rights. That is why Scotland needs to become a republic. It is not just about political preference.
9. Neil is spot on, as is Phil: if the SNP does not rid itself of the parasites and the agents of the British State (of which there are several, without doubt, but they would be replaced, anyway) and reconstitutes itself as THE party of independence for Scotland, it will be overtaken and replaced by a party or political movement that does represent the people of Scotland.
10. I agree with Lloyd that the British Civil Service is a huge problem for us. Independence would see many of these people being sent home. They have acted as legislators, and that is totally outwith their remit. As Lloyd says, too many of them have no life experience whatsoever and remain adolescent in their outlook – which, essentially, is the problem with too many SNP, Green, Labour and Lib Dem MSPs and MPs, too, in relation to the gender nonsense. I also agree that the travelling community has been badly served by every Scottish government and remains a running sore.
11. the Horizon debacle is laughable and shows just how incompetent the ASG is in relation to the law – the real law, not Stonewall Law. All it would take is a wee tweak of the English/Welsh/NI legislation to make it work. I think it is the compensation that is needling Humza, but this was a British/Westminster malpractice, and they will, legally, have to deal with it. Humza should think about consulting some real Scottish lawyers.
12. it seems incredible that no further arrests have been made apart from that of Peter Murrell. Others knew, without doubt. I don’t suggest that they pocketed the money, but was it used to settle unwinnable court cases?
Oh, and Roddy and the gang: thank you all for that you do for us, the Scottish people. We owe, big time, the bloggers, the commentators and everyone, like Neil, who organizes marches and rallies and events, SALVO and Liberation, and every other soul who puts Scotland and its people first. Thank you.
Thank you for watching and commenting and your kind words and wisdom
Scots have aye suffered from the curse that the law is mainly for the rich. And, as Eva rightly notes, legal aid remains wholly insufficient and defense lawyers are few and far between, whilst bigger salaries are on offer for state prosecutors. This is by design, obviously, so it must be intended to be this way.
But there is an added dimension to oppression suffered by people in a colonial society which reflects a reality in which “the native hardly ever seeks for justice in the colonial framework” (Fanon). Colonialism results in a “Manichean society” where there exists “two cultural and psychical realms” which divide the assimilated elites from the mass of the people and their culture. And here the highest per capita prison population in Western Europe and inhumane prison conditions and processes are another sign of Scots colonial condition, reflecting how the ruling elites view the ordinary fowk an thair ain cultur.
As is the way of ‘the colonial hoax’ we are also increasingly conscious that our institutions and the elites running them are aye serving the wrang (i.e. Imperial) Crown, by implication subordinating the soverane Scottish Croun (i.e. the fowk o the realm), and having done so for some considerable period of time such that they appear not to notice any more. The justiciary even does its business in the vacated auld Scottish Parliament, which in some respects indicates where power (or rather ‘indirect rule’) really lies in Scotland.
We are reminded that “colonialism is force” (Memmi), efter aw.