There can be no doubt Nicola Sturgeon got the election result she strived for throughout the recent campaign. She put most of her energy into ensuring Alex Salmond, and the Alba Party were frozen out by the media. This ensured the general public were mostly unawares of The Alba Party or its aims. Indeed anecdotal evidence shows that SNP activists, few as they were actively were suggesting a vote for Alba was a vote less for Nicola and the SNP. A disgusting lie as the final results showed.
The entire SNP Campaign was both votes Nicola more than both votes SNP. The battle bus only had Nicola’s face and her name on the side. No mention of Independence or SNP. The message was use your list Vote to elect Nicola as First Minister. Another blatant lie, what is it about buses and political parties lying?
All that said, it was successful after a fashion for the SNP. Alba were temporarily halted by Nicola’s actions and collusion with the Anti-Scottish Media. Anyone kidding themselves that Sturgeon and her closest goons were not aware of the consequences of the two votes strategy really shouldn’t be involved in any kind of debate on the subject. Sturgeon preferred a Unionist List landslide and Green gains on the list to an Independence Super Majority. No Alba representation on Friday must have given her some temporary self-satisfaction. If she had only Scottish self-determination on her mind, which she doesn’t, she would have known the result was in fact a disaster for Scottish independence. The question has to be, does she care?
By Saturday when it was confirmed that she and The SNP had missed out on an outright majority I am sure the person smiling the most was Boris Johnson. In Scotland, it was Patrick Harvie. He and The Greens for the next five years are in control of the Holyrood agenda. Nothing gets through Holyrood now without his tacit approval. Sturgeon can bully and threaten her own side and force them into submission. The Greens she cannot. She will have to appease and please them every day. When Patrick says Nicola Jump! She will have to say Yes Patrick, how high?
I am sure Sturgeon is happy that her fellow Gender Political allies are her bedfellows for this parliamentary term. She really doesn’t have the strategic sense to know she is in fact in a bind. Her actions over the past years indicate Gender Politics are her main priority and not independence. No Alba independence agitators in sight means she has no threats now to her horrific woke plans and policies.
I forecast it won’t be too long before she is regretting her actions. In the last Parliament the Greens showed with OBFA they can easily be seduced by the Unionists. Their commitment to independence we know is lukewarm at best. They will be with SNP all the way on GRA Reform and any woke policies Patrick fancies. However, it won’t be long into the parliament before Patrick Harvie and the Greens give the SNP a reminder just who is really in charge.
I suggest that a piece of SNP legislation early on in the Parliament will be sabotaged by the Greens. When that happens there is absolutely nothing Nicola or the SNP can do to prevent it. She needs the Greens more than they need her or the SNP. If independence is delayed, harmed or destroyed, the Greens won’t care a jot! She can feign anger at them however, she will then meekly have to accept whatever her Green Woke allies want. She may threaten bully and intimidate her own party however she has no hold over the Greens.
On Tuesday Holyrood elected Nicola as the new First Minister, not the 1,094,370 SNP List votes as you were all told would elect her to the post.(Another Lie!) The Greens sent a subtle yet very clear message to the SNP by abstaining on the vote. They knew that their abstention would not prevent Nicola being elected FM. It did though tell Nicola they were not just going to obediently roll over to fete her. They also sent a message to the Unionists. The abstention told the House-Jocks if they come up with something interesting enough for the Greens they can be persuaded to support the unionist cause on an issue by issue basis! In return The Greens will expect a quid quo pro from the Unionists.
By insisting on crushing Alba, Nicola and the SNP now have to rely on Greens for everything that they want to do. The SNP missed out on a majority by one however it will mean they are always dependent on Greens to get anything through parliament.
It came as no surprise the new Presiding Officer is a Green. Just watch now how Green issues are promoted. How long before you will not be able to register the sex of your child on their birth certificate? How long before the first woman is imprisoned for trying to defend her rights or safe space?
One of the first things Nicola said after her election as First Minister was to promise not to advance independence cause until the Covid “crisis” is over. What she didn’t tell us was does she mean the actual virus is declared over or does she mean until the economic impact has been cured? It could mean the difference of decades if it is the latter.
When it is Harvie’s opportunity to speak independence will not be a word rolling off of his tongue. Note now that the election is over how little regard he or the Greens have for the cause of Scottish freedom. Watch as Nicola and the SNP follow every whim and fancy of the Greens. If we do not exert ourselves independence will be parked from now until the next election, the UK General Election in 2024.
Scottish independence has been dealt a temporary blow by this unholy gender alliance. With no Alba representation in the Parliament to keep the SNP feet to the independence fire it is incumbent upon all of us to keep the pressure on. I will now every day send a message to both the SNP and Greens. I will ask them ‘what have you done to advance the cause of independence today?’ A small gesture, however if enough of us do it then we are telling them while they may have forgotten what they were elected to do, we have not forgotten why we lent them our votes!
We the YES Movement once more need to keep the flame of Independence flickering. This election has proved we cannot trust the politicians to deliver Scotland from Imperial English overlordship. The Both Votes Nicola proved beyond a shadow of doubt she is more interested in her personal agenda and ambitions than in the plight of Scotland.That might still be too difficult for some to accept. The coming weeks and months will tell if I am right or not. There is a great proverb which I think covers the situation perfectly for Nicola and the SNP. Act in haste, repent in leisure!
Saor Alba gu brath.
Well said, Roddy. I couldn’t agree more. The Greens will be unreliable allies at the best of times, simply because they have to be. To have any credibility with their own support base, the Greens now have to show some muscle, they have to show they are not just SNP stooges. And the way they do that, the only way they can, is by being obstinate, challenging the SNP at every opportunity. Confrontation just for the sake of it. By contrast, Nicola will have no option but to accommodate quite a bit of very unpopular, unsavoury legislation, just to kkep the Greens onboard for the big stuff like passing budgets etc. Result – the Greens look strong, at the SNP’s expense. It;s dire, but it’s the only realistic outcome I can see during the next couple of years. Hopefully ALBA will continue to grow and increasingly become a more credible, visible alternative to this hybrid Green-SNP nonsense. The SNP leadership, the BBC and the rest of the UK media pulled out all the stops to deny ALBA public exposure and scare indy voters from wasting their second vote (how did that work out. In spite of this, ALBA will become more known and credible, as long as the party keeps going. In addition to the support of BHB, YFS and other blogs, it;s vital that Alex and the other big hitters stay in the game. We can win but as I keep saying, this is not a cup final, it’s a war of attrition. It will take time. Stay strong, and keep fighting. 🙂
It was the latter. She stated months back that she would not even consider the question of independence until the economic impact of covid had been fully dealt dealt with. So yep, decades. And as pointed out previously, this is just the beginning. Fisheries sacrificed, now our farmers, increase in trident warheads which goes against international law, next will be either a renewed attack on renewables, fracking the central belt or tourist industry.
Bravo Sir.
Her Covid statement could accommodate the largest bus possible. Covid in Scotland? Covid in the UK? Covid in the World? No more deaths? No more infected?
Note that her her ‘Brexit’ condition was just as vague.
Neither have defined conditions.
Yet they line up to worship at her feet.
I am reminded of this ‘cartoon’.
https:https://twitter.com/neilstrauss/status/934634527707643911/photo/1//twitter.com/neilstrauss/status/934634527707643911/photo/1
From early 2015 onwards, there has never been any doubt that gender politics was the force driving the SNP, not independence. I still read the hard copy of The National, but to say I’m utterly disillusioned is putting it mildly. It offers nothing in the way of debate about the way the SNP leadership has hi-jacked the independence movement. Too many were blind to the reality, on 6 May, and The National pushes the SNP agenda relentlessly, just as the other newspapers do the Unionist side. The fact is that both sides are looking remarkably similar now.
We are living in an age of ‘snowflake-ism’, where very few politicians are willing to do what it takes to actually achieve anything even remotely for the voters who voted them into office. Many are, quite simply, far too young to be allowed near power, their natural inclination by age being authoritarianism; most are drawn from one background: middle-class; comfy slippers; and friable. They crumble like a packet of biscuits on opening, are used only to student politics and life experience is anathema to most of them.
Once, you had to learn the ropes from the bottom up, even with a degree, and you learned your ‘trade’ from the old hands. Nothing but contempt awaits anyone older than 40 who dares to gainsay these children who have never wanted for anything, who have had everything handed to them on a plate, so much so that life’s normal challenges are unknowable and ethereal. They also blame ‘the boomers’ for every set-back instead of the (mainly) Tory establishment under Thatcher that started the ball rolling towards the shallow world which we now inhabit. They look around for something to fill the void and gender politics and virtue-signalling provide the answer to their quest for meaning – except that, of course, it doesn’t.
Some, like Christine Jardine, Lib Dem, are heavyweight prizefighters (as all Lib Dems are) who wouldn’t know a gamete from a gene, but they are willing to sacrifice their own sex on the altar of trans genderism. You can tell quite easily that they don’t believe all this science- and biology-denying c**p, but virtue-signalling is being transformed into an art form as we speak. The Greens will, indeed, hold the SNP to ransom on this issue, and you are right, BB, that the SNP leadership were willing to sacrifice 51-2% of the population of Scotland in order both to keep Alba out and the Greens in.
We are now in for a very, very rough ride, indeed, and there will be no independence pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. There never was intended to be – unless, of course, the English people and government endorse it, then NS will have to accept it, but she will initiate nothing concrete and substantial. Nothing. Until it is time to skip off into the sunset of her career and straight into another lucrative sinecure, as all failed politicians, leaving behind them the carnage they have wreaked and which, oddly, never affects them personally in a real way, as it does the people they abandon to their crumbling society: Thatcher; Blair; et al.
O/T The fire-bombing of Peter Lawlor’s house in the early hours of this morning, and what underlies the attack has got to be discussed in the new media, likewise the outrageous scenes in the centre of Glasgow at the weekend. Are we being played-for-fools once more by those determined to divide Scottish society? It’s high-time that the honest and long avoided debate was underway in Scotland. Fascism comes many guises, but it’s still fascism!
It saddened me too see so many SNP supporters meekly follow the SNP leadership advice on SNP 1 & 2…It also worried me…l was personally abused on a few independence websites for proclaiming that SNP 1 & any other independence party 2 was the way to go…l suddenly went from being a fellow yesser to being a turncoat bastard…if l didn’t laugh l would have gret…and l thought to myself l know we are not too wee and we are definitely not too poor…but alas l fear we may well be too stupid???
Craig:
You are correct, I believe, that too many snp (no capitals for non entities) voters are intellectually meek and trust too much to what the snp tell them. It’s an emotional response to voting for politicians that they like, instead of voting on strategy and or policies.
I’ve never trusted Sturgeon, it’s unwise to trust any of them as they can be either self compromised and or compromised by the english elite state. There is no legislation to have politicians recalled or removed from office.
As far as I’m concerned, sturgeons rhetoric along with several other snp pension potters is inconsistent with the very spirit of what they stand for and I want them removed. kate forbes couldn’t say what Paul Mason said on Question Time last week, telling a largely English audience that Scottish Independence is none of your (English) business. Maybe forbes is one of the frauds that Lorna Campbell was describing.
The snp have no guts, no integrity, no vision and now are resembling the kind of political party that we want to escape from in the westminster paradigm.
I have left my ALBA poster up in the window long after the HR election and it is staying there.
Just about sums it up. As the Sturgeon SNP have a superficial commitment to independence, the Greens have a superficial commitment to real action on climate change. Both issues get them votes, but they prefer their hobby horses of ‘progressive’ issues which apparently unite them.
Nikla has already rowed back promises of the referendum, and promised to dial down the indy debate. Now the election is over she reverts to her comfort zone which is to keep indy as just over the horizon in perpetuity. There will always be a reason to put it off, she is a past master at the art of procrastination, and has never shown any deep commitment to the cause. She loves to cast herself as the opposition to Boris in Scotland, while doing precious little about it – it is her get out of jail free card, giving the impression of leadership while using Boris as her excuse for everything she has messed up or failed to do.
The only thing she and her coterie are interested in is power. She has absolute power in Scotland, although fails to use it for anything useful in people’s lives, and therefore has no incentive to take a risk on independence. She has a vested interest in putting it off for ever, while taking the opportunity to pose as a middle class ‘progressive’. In her view that amounts to making a video informing us of what pronouns she prefers – yes, they will be cheering her through the streets of Glasgow for that revolutionary gesture. I can’t actually remember anything else she has done, except spent two years trying to jail a colleague on dubious charges and evading accountability for that and the millions spent on it.
Oh, and you can buy a book of her speeches, published by the recipient of government grants, and titled with a Mao quote. Does she know what happened to Madame Mao?
Sturgeon has appointed her new Cabinet and it is based on loyalty not ability (same as Johnston in Westminster). Yousaf now responsible for Health – disaster awaits us. Somerville looking after Education – bloody hell – the person who was incapable of managing the new devolved powers on Social Security must have done something else to keep in favour with Sturgeon. Robertson rewarded as well. Mr REDACTION himself sometimes know as Swinney is also rewarded for his loyalty and multiple votes of no confidence. The only good thing is that she cannot appoint her husband to the Cabinet for his services.
Is there any news of Alex Salmond’s legal action against Evans, or his complaint to the police about the leak to the press? Is Gordon Dangerfield going to complete part three of his series of articles, or has he given up?
There must be a lot of information which should be in the public domain, but is presently hidden. Unless and until a way is found of making this public knowledge, there seems no way of bringing about the changes necessary to put genuine independence seekers in positions of influence, replacing the present incumbents.
I am myself, awaiting Alex taking action against Evans. How many in Sturgeons front bench had a part to play in Alex’s stitch up?
I can name a couple & I live in the southern hemisphere & have been away from Scotland just over 50 years.
To think in 2014, the SNP was a well respected political party with the primary aim of Independence.
Today it’s just like any another unionist party. It breaks my heart that some people from the YES MOVEMENT have been conned by Sturgeon & didn’t see what ALBA was offering them with the super majority in Holyrood.
I sincerely hope that before the UK GE, that they waken up to how they have been misled by Sturgeons SNP & vote in ALBA politicians to replace the SNP bench warmers that are presently there.
SNP at the moment is the weakest link towards Independence in my view.
Kiwilassie
I think people will wake up, but only when they have hard facts given to them. At the moment the most that has been revealed was Craig Murray’s account of the Salmond trial. I could not work out the identities of the complainants from what he said, but knowledge of who they are seems key to understanding the whole issue.
Many times I have read words along the lines ‘ Everyone in politics and the press know who they are’. Well, such is the importance of this issue, that a way needs to be found so that those that matter most – the ordinary people – can have the necessary facts to make a judgement on what was behind the prosecution of Alex Salmond.
If I understand the position correctly, the trial judge would not allow the defence to adduce evidence of the alleged plot against Mr. Salmond. That was the unused material which he wanted to give to the Fabiani Committee, but they were prevented from publishing it by the Crown Office.
Whilst there is a public interest argument in favour of keeping complainants identities secret, when there has been a finding of not guilty on all charges, and an allegation of the prosecution being a put-up job, there is also a compelling argument for allowing an innocent man to clear his name by reference to who was involved and what they did.
The people could then make a judgement about who they would want to be in positions of authority in government when the issue of independence is being discussed.
Simple fact is that Sturgeon concentrated her effort in stifling Alba to allow unionist MSPs to retain their seats, whereas otherwise all of the second votes for Alba would have given a supermajority.
She got what she wanted – 62 +2 SNP and 8 Green. Total 74.
Had the SNP second vote gone to Alba the model of that vote shows that the result would have been – 62 + 0 SNP plus 31 Alba and 2 Greens. Total 95
Now an SNP supported by an Alba ( all ex SNP ) would have been an entirely different proposition. But hey, Sturgeon did not want an ipso facto independence majority. She’s a closet unionist.
And that is why the “ independence in union “ message is now about to publicly appear.