I have often opined that independence was guaranteed the day that the wonderful Winnie Ewing won the Hamilton by-election back in November 1967. It was a shot across the bow of the very dominant British Labour Party from one of their heartland seats. It was a warning they failed to heed. Indeed, they still refuse to understand the wishes of the people of Scotland!
Over the succeeding years the Scottish voters gave notice that Labour’s slavish devotion to England to the detriment of Scotland was unacceptable. Back then Labour had their own carrots they handed out at election times. Their trigger word was socialism. They kept promising it at every election and of course, as soon as the election was over they forgot all about it until the next time the ballot box was in play.
The Labour MPs Scotland elected promised a land of milk and honey at every electoral cycle. What it took Scottish voters a long time to realise was they were talking about themselves, not their constituents. As soon as they got to London with their huge majorities, they were living in the land of milk and honey. People who in any other walk of life would have been lucky to earn the minimum wage working in Tescos were suddenly in the top 5 percentile of earners in the UK. Gravy slurping is not a new phenomenon for Scottish MPs and MSPs.
When we looked at the Labour MPs in any depth, we quickly discovered walking imbeciles that could hardly construct an understandable sentence let alone improve Scots lives! If you cast your mind, back to the days of 50 Labour MPs and every Scottish local authority under Labour control you will recall how few of their number were allowed near a radio mic or TV camera. A few of their number who could articulate their lies were put forward to spin the truth. The rest were kept hidden from sight and more importantly sound. If the Internet had been with us earlier, Labour’s fall from grace would have also happened sooner!
So despite the voters of Scotland moving away from Labour, they carried on in the same manner. They still do. Labour always put the party and the wishes and needs of London Labour ahead of Scotland and its needs. Even when the writing was on the wall in 2011 when the SNP under Alex Salmond achieved the impossible and won a Holyrood majority Labour failed to heed the warning!
Their slavish devotion to English imperial rule over Scotland was harming them electorally. However, they still kept ignoring Scots desire for more autonomy. They blamed the voters. They blamed the Tory press.They blamed the dogs in the street. Everyone and everything else were to blame except them and their pig headedness and their devotion to Mother England.
Nothing has changed. At the next UK General Election in 2024 they will promise Scots the best, the biggest, the most humongous, most devolved governance in the history of mankind. Their campaign will be Vote for us because we are not the Tories or the SNP bad. Indeed, in England they are already promising a council tax freeze, new infrastructure projects as near to full employment as possible and all to be funded by Scottish North Sea revenues!
Meanwhile, in Scotland they will be telling you the oil, gas and renewables are running out. That they are too volatile to base an economy upon. Basically, they will tell you the same lies they have been telling you ever since the first oil was landed from the North Sea in the 1970s. Scotland is too poor too stupid and too wee to leave the English nipple! Never forget this party of carpetbaggers were the ones that hid the McRone Report from their fellow countrymen to protect the people in a neighbouring country!
Due to the self-inflicted difficulties, the SNP finds themselves in the Labour Party may indeed gain a few seats at Westminster at the expense of the National Party. Labour will then kid themselves on that they have finally killed independence stone dead! They will, of course be wildly wrong! Independence is not going to be killed off now or ever! It is merely being delayed. Any Labour ‘success’ will be fleeting and quickly reversed when once again London under Labour ignores Scotland to concentrate on England.
All the reasons for the demise of the British Labour Party in Scotland I have described above can equally apply to the SNP. An inability to read the mood or wishes of its voters. Making independence promises at every election and failing to deliver on said promises! Sending down to Westminster a bunch of chancers that have allowed themselves to be sucked into the Westminster milk and honey bubble. Most of them have become good little Jocko Brits. More loyal to Mother England than their country of birth. The majority of those from the SNP in London wouldn’t have made a junior management or foreman job in civvy street.
Burns got it right when he talked of a parcel o rogues in a nation! Too many SNP MPs have been bought and sold for English gold.
Like Labour the majority of your MPs and MSPs are kept away from radio mics and TV cameras. Unfortunately for SNP command some of these useless individuals have access to social media. The public have been alerted to the paucity of their representatives much quicker than in days gone by.
Just like Labour before them the SNP are blaming everyone else for their own self-inflicted difficulties. It is the Brits. It is Alba. It is the pro-independence bloggers. It is the voters not understanding. It is everyone and anyone else to blame except us. This was crystallised by Humza Yousaf saying that the SNP had actually gained support with its stance on GRRB! The inability to read the mood of the country is obviously another character flaw of Mr Yousaf.
There is no doubt the SNP popularity is on the wane. When Sturgeon was forced to resign, the party had a chance to reset and get back on to an upward trajectory. Instead, the old guard led by Peter Murrell, a man under investigation for fraud, organised completely his wife’s replacement. The timescale, the hustings, the location of those hustings, who could attend, who chaired them. Everything was done to ensure the Continuity Candidate, Humza Yousaf would win.
It is worth noting that the most outspoken candidate for independence, Ash Regan was the one that was shunned and briefed against most by Murrell and his henchmen and women in the SNP. The same MPs and MSPs, who are living in the land of milk and honey in both Holyrood and Westminster while you struggle to get the heating on were told who to back and what to say. Like good little gravy slurping sheep they complied!
I won’t go over all the details of the sham that was that election, Suffice to say the new First Minister is viewed by many as having zero credibility. Even by their own admission albeit a forced admission the SNP have lost over 50,000 members. (I suspect it may be even a greater number than this.) They lost this number of members not because they were doing the things members wanted and expected from the SNP. The exact opposite! It was because they had strayed way off of course from independence nothing less that they have haemorrhaged so many members and voters!
If a commercial enterprise had lost 50-70,000 of their 126,000 customer base questions would be getting asked. There would be a clear out of the boardroom. Their entire operation would be overhauled from top to bottom. The reasons for losing so many customers would be analysed to nth degree. What any half decent sane organisation would not do would be to say we will, just keep going as normal everything is fine and dandy it is the members that are wrong, not us! It is the voters that are wrong, not us.
By electing Humza Yousaf and insisting on no change, steady as we go the SNP are party to their own downfall. Who knows when and if good sense will ever prevail. It may never, and they could very well go the same way as Labour in Scotland and become a fringe party.
What the recent polling is showing that while support for the SNP is falling quite dramatically support for independence is holding steady at 45-48% in the polls. This to should be a huge red flag to the SNP it seems though that they are colour blind and cannot see the warning signs.
This hardcore independence support is there despite Sturgeon’s SNP doing absolutely nothing to advance the cause in nearly 9 years. When the opportunity arises, that 45-48% of Scottish voters will be ready. They may not vote for an election or two, but they will still be waiting on the opportunity to vote for independence. When a way to independence presents itself only a few % more need convinced to carry the day. In 2014 when the campaign began we were on only 29%.
I do not know when and how Scottish independence will be achieved. I do, however, know this, it will happen and when it does I hope the by-election victory of Winnie Ewing in November 1967 in Hamilton is given the credit it deserves for setting in motion the long road to self-determination!
The dream will never die, it will be fulfilled!
Great post Roddy, It seems Ash has gone very quiet since the election, have you ever considered inviting her on the Prism, I’d love to hear her views on the state of the party now
She has an open invitation. We would love her or indeed any independence supporting MSP or MPto be a guest they are all welcome.
Good post Roddy. Talking of being out of touch, I’m amused at the UK media interpreting the current problems of the SNP as a setback for independence. I think that the exact opposite is true. Let’s accept that the SNP leadership and payroll has been the biggest obstacle to independence over the last 8 years, which has seen the recent launch of ALBA , ISP, Salvo and Liberation. Removing the obstacle is only going to help the independence struggle (let’s call it a struggle now rather than a campaign). There are I think only 2 potential outcomes for the SNP. The first is a serious renaissance under a new leadership genuinely focused on independence via means that do not depend on the goodwill of the British state, the second is the total destruction that they have brought on themselves.
I think the SNP will need a different leader and HQ staff before we see any change.
Excellent summary of the state of play, Roddy. Your are right: “If a commercial enterprise had lost 50-70,000 of their 126,000 customer base” it would likely now be in administration. ‘Continuity’ (i.e. the same people making the same mistakes) for such a failed entity might be referred to as ‘strategic drift’ in business speak.
What remains of the SNP hierarchy is therefore ‘drifting’, a bit like a boat with that has run out of fuel (its support), and is now also holed below the waterline (reputationally), with only the deceitful payroll left on board, and sinking rapidly.
good analogy Alf, lack of cash is what ultimately kills businesses, & whereas the SNP has definitely focussed on cash in so many ways, it will soon be bankrupt as a going concern as well as morally speaking.
Great summary Roddy which very much encapsulates where we are.
For many and especially so the establishment 2014 was a watershed moment because that was when it was realized that independence could be won.
The referendum was granted on the assumption that it could not be won but it nearly was.
And so it is crystal clear that decisions were made to destroy the independence movement. And what better way to do so than turn the SNP from a pro independence party under the likes of Alex Salmond into first a foot dragging evolutionist and then to destroy it.
And destroy it they have with the SNP’s with attendantly they hope a decline in the SNP’s electoral popularity
But as you say Roddy, the desire for independence has not waned. Indeed given that there has been no independence campaigning for years, that the SNP have been implementing unpopular policies, the static desire for independence is actually very robust.
And it is that desire that will deliver independence.
The Brits are throwing everything at it now. Turning traitor the SNP, emasculating SNP member participation, using the law against political threats, and indeed, managing to jail some, controlling the media, reducing the powers of the Scottish Parliament through the UK Internal Market Bill and the use of the Supreme Court, the intervention of the levelling up funds direct from Westminster, the setting up of a UK civil service hub in Edinburgh, and the deliberate delaying of census data leaving Scotland blind as to the demographics of a country increasingly subject to massive migration from England. It’s all in play, and coordinated
And Police Scotland and the COPFS are absolutely art and part of the utterly corrupt processes of selective, vindictive and politically biased actions.
Holding off until after the rigged installation of Humza, the street theatre of a huge police raid, replete with cordon off incident tape and forensic tenting on Sturgeon’s house tells you that this was for public consumption. Ditto the raid on Gordon Lamb HQ.
But that is not to say that there are not dark deeds out there to be exposed. Dark deeds that could turn a nation, cause the demand for independence to soar.
This Roddy is a dirty filthy covert colonial war. Britain has never ceded a colony easily. And this is their last colony, rich in oil, gas, renewables, fishing, agriculture, minerals and aggregates and they want to keep it.
But they lost every other colony and they will lose Scotland too.
Great article. I also think the fact that support for Scottish independence has remained above 40% (despite everything) to be really encouraging. None of the former British colonies had an easy path to freedom and Scotland is no exception. Independence will happen, but it will do so in its own time, when the people are ready. The people are not quite there yet IMHO, but the trajectory is clear and it may yet happen sooner than expected. Even Winnie back in 1967 understood that it would be a long, hard road, a few decades and possibly generations to pass before it became believable. Well it’s believable now and it’s within our grasp, all we lack is a strong leader and team to take us over the line. In Alex Salmond, we had that strong leader (and may yet again if the stars realign) but those that followed him let us down badly (a common colonial experience). The main effect of the 1967 Hamilton by-election victory is that we started down the road, and we are still very much on that road to independence. No looking back, and definitely no turning back. If we stay on the road, we win eventually – guaranteed. Same with Alba, Salvo, SIP, AUOB etc etc. Hang on in there! When it looks so bleak, when we have setbacks, we don’t give up, we stay the course, until we win. It’s coming for a that.
We need the rotten SNP to split. There must be some people of integrity left in the SNP. They must see how necessary it is to give the pro indy electorate a clear dedicated avenue to follow. Vote Alba.
Yes, indeed, BB. Independence and the SNP are two very different entities, and some very bright people still don’t get that. It will take a huge clearing out of the deadwood or the demise of the party to change direction.
However, independence itself is not reliant upon the SNP in any real sense except in that the levers of power that could bring us independence are in the hands of the SNP. The fact is that the SNP will not use those levers to bring us independence, so that statement is pointless and redundant, in any case.
A party whose raison d’être is to regain Scottish independence but has no intention of so doing, is a bit of a liability, no? Holding feet to the fire has not worked either, and reading the letters pages of The National any day of the week will prove conclusively that the loyalist members have no desire to change.
I’m afraid that seeing the wood is now out of the question because too many trees get in the way. The SNP will have to die and the gap filled by another party that will take up the slack, with members who will do all that it will take to regain our independence.
It will not be one-sided, though, because I believe that the English people are, more and more, willing to let us go our own way and not dancing to the British State tune. Many of them can see the benefits of each part of the UK being independent, yet interconnected in new ways where we have common interests – and no one should be under any illusion that we do not have mutual and group interests.
A loose alliance for mutual benefit along the lines of the Scandi countries seems to be something worth aiming for, always with the proviso that Scotland will decide her own relations with other countries out-with that loose alliance. That, too, is very much the Scandi way.
Norway and Sweden are in a very similar relationship to that of Scotland and England in many ways: Sweden, the big, colonial country of the past, sends people to Norway for work in the oil and green energy industries, rather than the other way round, these days; although Norwegians benefit from a massive oil fund that Scotland can only dream of; ensuring that our green energy or hybrid energy sources are not purloined must be one of the main principles of any future Scottish government. All of this is well within our grasp if we would but grasp these opportunities.
Lorna
Of Course Scotland can only dream of an Oil Fund even Alex Salmond himself had to admit that too.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/scottish-independence-alex-salmond-takes-step-back-oil-fund-2511096
The English Government would be mad to willingly let our Scottish assets go. Like every other colonist, they will hang on for as long as we let them. It’s up to us, the Scottish people, to walk away with all that is rightfully ours. We are an honest race. They are the thieves.
The rotting corpse of what’s left of the SNP needs to be buried and forgotten. It is way past the point where resurrection is possible and any time wasted on this futile activity simply delays Scottish independence further. All the necessary building blocks to achieve Scottish independence already exist. It’s time for them to regroup and do what the SNP has consistently failed to do during Sturgeon’s tenure. Build a better prospectus and convert undecideds.
“The Declaration of a Sovereign Scot” initiative … Scotland’s Living History.
The first batch to arrive was at 10.48am on the 3rd of April 2023. The second batch to arrive was at 10.49am on the 4th of April 2023. The third batch to arrive was at 11.00 am on the 5th of April 2023.
With each batch the Secretary General of the United Nations had in his possession the individually signed Declarations of hundreds of Sovereign Scots, each batch sent as “track and sign” to be in New York on the 6th of April, to commemorate the anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath 1320.
Each individually signed Declaration opens with this statement:
“Exercising my Claim Of Right as a Sovereign Scot, I declare:
I do not consent to the terms of, nor the continuation of, the Treaty of Union established through the Acts of Union in 1707.”
Scotland will regain its independence when Sovereign Scots, no longer simply talk of their Sovereignty, but truly act upon it!
Will you be part of this initiative, will future generations learn of your part in Scotland’s Living History?
It seems Mike Russell doesn’t agree with you Roddy , but when did Mike Russell ever tell the truth ?
“A senior figure in the SNP has said the party faces its biggest crisis in 50 years amid the police investigation into its finances.
Mike Russell, the SNP president and a former minister, also said he does not think independence can be achieved ”
If this takes 15 to 20 years to fix then for most of us oldies its over, confidence in the SNP won’t come back for a long long time.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/snp-facing-biggest-crisis-in-50-years-says-president/ar-AA19Ceov?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=5378ee0463c04791b24ddaff9244b2e8&ei=11
I don’t think you either read my piece ir gave ever read any of my blogs?
Your comment could have been written by a These Islands haufwit.
They too believe SNP is the independence movement.
That is why Unionism can never defeat the independence cause they do not even know what it is.