A Guest Post by Craig Dempsey
I stood as an Alba Party candidate in the Kirkcaldy North ward. I was proud to do so. Some people will say that I’m just bitter because I didn’t get elected…I’M NOT. First and foremost I support SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE. I would be delighted if the SNP go on to win us independence from the Westminster Dictatorship.
Sadly, I’m sorry to say, I can’t see that happening anytime soon. I don’t think the SNP is interested in independence just now. If independence was top of their agenda, I would happily forgive them for their poor governance, things like the ferries disaster, GRA, the waste of public funds on court cases they couldn’t win, the missing £600k, etc.
The facts of the matter are independence is nothing more than a vote winner for the SNP!
Now that the dust has settled on the local government elections, I have had time to reflect and collect my thoughts on the campaign. I was hugely disappointed in my result as well as the National results of the Alba party. Against that I have to be realistic, The Alba Party is a little over a year old and it doesn’t have the voting & election data other parties have.
The MSM once again totally ignored the party and that made it difficult to get the Alba 5 point poverty plan out to the Scottish people. We had the SNP actively working against Alba. I personally did several street stalls next to the SNP to try and show a united pro-Indy front. Every single leaflet I posted through letterboxes, I asked people to vote ALL pro-Indy parties. Compare that to the SNP message “Both votes SNP & no other party.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that the SNP are running scared of any other party that is pushing for Scottish independence. Below is my reasoning behind that opinion.
To start, we have to go back to the 28th April 2019. Nicola Sturgeon made this statement, “Scotland must have the choice of an independent future. So next month we will introduce legislation for a referendum, We plan to pass it by end of this year”. Nicola got a standing ovation (YouTube – ‘Nicola Sturgeon #SNP19’ starts at 32mins 25sec).
Nicola Sturgeon delivers her #SNP19 address
We are still waiting on this bill to go through Holyrood!
So why has there been no movement by the SNP when it comes to independence? This is my considered thoughts. The SNP are SKINT, they have no money to fight an independence referendum. The SNP needs the Short Money they receive from Westminster just to survive, never mind fight a referendum campaign. Why else would they be fighting against other pro-Indy parties? Some people will say “rubbish, what about the Greens?” I mean no disrespect to the Greens, but they don’t have mass appeal, so they don’t really threaten the SNP power.
Nicola gave the faithful the carrot of referendum legislation when a General Election was more than likely. But it doesn’t stop there. Look at the 2021 Holyrood elections. We had the opportunity to fill the Scottish Parliament with pro Indy MSPs. Instead of embracing this opportunity the SNP pushed Both Votes SNP in the full knowledge that it would allow the unionist parties in through the list, not SNP MSPs! Let us be honest, the unionist parties aren’t going to pressure the SNP into calling a referendum.
As I mentioned earlier, the referendum legislation hasn’t been fully presented to Holyrood. There is a possibility it may well be debated this Autumn. It will of course, pass with the help of the Greens. So everything would be looking good for an independence referendum sometime in 2023.
Except, regrettably we WON’T have a indyref in 2023. Once the legislation passes and before it gets Royal Assent, Westminster will challenge it through the English courts!!!
The SNP knows this however, once again Nicola Sturgeon will be able to blame Westminster that there WON’T an indyref in 2023. I believe this is what has been planned all along.
My thoughts don’t stop there. On one of her few visits to the SNP Westminster group, Nicola spoke about Plan B and how it will be debated at the 2024 SNP conference. Just in time for the planned General Election. I can just see now the election narrative that the SNP will use…”Just one more mandate, we have a Plan B.” Just another carrot for the faithful. The thing that annoys me is that people who believe in Scottish independence will fall for it again. The probable outcome would be an increase in SNP MPs meaning that the party will get even more Short Money to pay the sky high salaries for the SNP HQ.
Now, you may think that I’m being cynical, but on polling day I spoke to 2 elected SNP members, David Torrance (Kirkcaldy MSP & Peter Grant Glenrothes MP). Both started out towing the party line…Indyref2 in 2023. When I put my thoughts to them, Peter Grant said “ we’ll have to wait and see” David Torrance gave a small smile saying, “You could be right”
My point is that neither of them called me out or denied what I said.
Ask yourself this, why didn’t the Scottish Government support the Martin Keatings case a couple of years ago? If Martin had won his case that would have put paid to any challenge from Westminster over any referendum legislation! Instead the Scottish Government fought against Martin the whole way and he lost the case.
Bookmakers don’t often get it wrong, they don’t think there is going to be a independence referendum until after 2025.
How many more broken promises do independence supporters have to put up with before the penny drops? If the SNP had been doing the job they were elected to do by the Scottish people, there would be no need for the Alba Party. That is why there is a need for the Alba Party!
The Alba party has to continue to promote independence and work hard to become a credible party in the eyes of the voters. Once people start to realise that there is no possibility of an indyref next year the voters will need an alternative party to carry the fight to Westminster. Alba has to be ready to pick up the fight to free our country from the Westminster Dictatorship.
If today, you believe that there is going to be a referendum next year and it doesn’t happen, DON’T blame Westminster, blame the SNP.
If you think my views are wrong then instead of the normal abuse, tell me what I’ve got wrong.
Yours for Scotland,
Craig Dempsey (SaorAlba59)
Organiser Alba Party Fife LACU.
You would forgive them the GRA Reform Bill, would you, Craig? How magnanimous of you to hand away women’s and girls’s spaces and rights when it won’t actually affect you. Think about that. The SNP are handing away Scots’ spaces and rights, and you are willing to forgive their handing away women’s and girls’ spaces and rights? There’s a disconnect there, don’t you think?
As for ALBA, it is going nowhere unless it offers the Scottish public a very different route to independence from that of the SNP. We do not have another five years to wait around. Our rights and spaces are being handed away as we speak – straight into private and grasping hands. There would have been no massive fuel and energy hikes had Scotland had control of its own resources in the same way as Norway has. Their oil fund is designed to cushion extraneous pressures that have little or nothing to do with internal Norwegian affairs. We could have been doing the same. Nah, the pusillanimous and the collaborators decided otherwise. That is what you need to start telling the people: who is to blame for their plight; and how we can reach independence by utilising established Scottish constitutional tools – not by any referendum. That will never work again against the British State.
No independence movement ever won independence by asking the bullyboy for it. Referendums are totally unnecessary in international law and in domestic law. Oh, but the poor Unionists! The ‘poor Unionists’ have screwed Scotland over for more than 300 years. It is our time now. If they don’t like it, they know what to do. The border is due south. On the other hand, like the moderate Unionists in NI – and there’s a contradiction in terms, eh? – have come to their senses because they can see the way the wind is blowing. We have to make them see the way the wind is blowing in Scotland, too.
I get your point on GRA, I certainly could have found a better example. The rest of what you said I agree with. There are other ways to independence but because of Sturgeon’s inability to see past a section 30 we are stuck in this corrupt Westminster Dictatorship. We should look closely at what Sara Salyers has been doing and use the Claim of Rights then call a referendum to rejoin the union. I’m sick fed up waiting on Westminsters permission. We don’t need it!!!
I had no desire to harangue you, Craig, but, like so many men in the independence movement, you don’t seem to realise that you will need the women’s vote to achieve it. It should be obvious that independence is dead in the water if women don’t vote for it, or if they refuse to be drawn on independence at all because their rights and spaces have been bartered for some delusion about a referendum.
There is simply no question that self-ID will destroy women’s and girls’ rights and spaces. That has been obvious from day one and only the calculatedly cynical or the porn-soaked would argue that point. The vast majority of trans women, so-called, are autogynephiles who woman-face for sexual pleasure, not because they think that females are wonderful but because they see us as second-class humans, only worthy of humiliation and subjugation. Reading some of the stuff they write about themselves is puke-inducing.
Many of us will hold our noses and take the opportunity to have any chance of independence, but many will simply walk away if they are not diehards. The other thing that so few – men and women – seem to understand is that a society that does not value females is one that will not thrive, as a letter in The National todays points out. This has been proved over and over again in India and China and Africa.
It is a fact that can be proved that, where women are allowed to be educated and allowed to earn their own money, most of it will go on their children, and those children, in turn, will raise another generation in the same way, with starvation and low wages becoming less prevalent. What is also indisputable is that, once in power, women and men are remarkably similar, as Thatcher proved and Nicola Sturgeon is proving.
Lorna I do understand the issues. I’ve been involved with helping the Fife womens group arrange their public meetings. I have also attended these meetings. I have 3 daughters & 2 granddaughters. I’ve made it my business to study the GRA bill. Before I retired I worked in Social care with sex offenders so I know the problems this bill if it becomes legislation will cause. As I said previously it was a poor choice.
Craig, no more need be said on that score. Unfortunately, a lot of men (and probably women, too,) in the wider independence movement just don’t seem to understand that alienating women could lose them independence in either the shorter or longer term. Women will walk away and their support will be lost, probably forever.
Most people just don’t seem to comprehend either that the wokerati are in the SNP precisely because independence is of a lesser (if any) interest to them than self-ID. The party was chosen for its success and the fact that, if Scotland falls to this stuff, England and Wales are under threat thereafter, and they are the bigger prize.
The SNP was chosen by Stonewall and its ‘trans’ arms as the means to infiltrate the entire UK. Independence is of marginal interest, if any, to these people. Totally undermining Western societies for Queer Theory is the aim of the politically motivated. The billionaires behind them are in it for the profits to be made. In the SNP, either they are part of it, they are being used, or they are not thinking through the implications that this is so much bigger than the SNP, Scotland or even the UK.
I think most of them are cynical and manipulative, but those who should see it, so often don’t or think they are immune from its effects. They are not, not if the whole of society is turned upside down to try and placate these people.
Lorna as you are probably aware I as a 71 year old male with wife , daughter and grand daughter agree totally with everything you have written , when Stuart Campbell of WOS started EXPOSING the reviled GRA bill for what it really was and is I was horrified and outraged at the number of men (and also women commenters) who harangued Stuart for his concentration of the dangers that bill encourages , they insisted he ignore the problems and concentrate on indy matters , but Stuart being determined to EXPOSE and HIGHLIGHT the real danger and threat to women and girls ignored the demands (thankfully) and continued to educate and reveal the truth
I also agree that ALBA have to be more vociferously critical of the gross ineptitude of sturgeon and her cabal of morons who are wasting millions of pounds of our taxpayers money that would be better used addressing homelessness and poverty , a good start to that would be to get the gloves off and expose the perversions and deviance taking place in our schools with sex surveys for our children , story time with flowjob and other DRAG QUEENS , secrecy and witholding information from parents undermining the family dynamic , undermining the don’t trust a stranger advice by parents , and so much more
Yes, I do recall that, twathater, and I know you have always been opposed to the GRA Reform Bill. Stuart Campbell did so much research and hard work into this stuff. He saw it for what it really is long ago. The “just be kind” mantra has seduced even very clever people who seem incapable of seeing through this stuff to the core of it. That is infinitely sad, but not really surprising because, in the States, where it all began, before moving to England, then Scotland, the educational establishments were captured first. It is a social madness that has infected millions worldwide, aided by the internet and easy access to the most extreme porn. I wouldn’t even be surprised to discover that it started off as a huge hoax, spiced with misogyny, and grew arms and legs until it became uncontrollable. The undeniable fact is that ‘trans women’ – those who self-identify with this ideology – are able to use it to camouflage their real intent, which is to both encroach on all female rights and spaces, and to terrify females with their unending list of paraphilias (fetishes) for which they seek a free hand to display in public without the public’s consent – i.e. to normalise that which cannot be normalised unless all boundaries of public and common decency fall. The money men – and they are all men or ‘trans women’ – at the back of this, and who enable it with funds and political might, are the real villains – exploitative, power and money hungry psychopaths who want to drive all of us into the latest predatory capitalist ‘prison’.
Well said, Lorna.
I’ve spoken about Sturgeon since 2015
What I observed was, whatever thought you imagined Sturgeon would or could do .Is being done
As for the money, yes the SNP are probably broke,
So just where is the money coming from?
Some thing I wondered about was the result
If labour and the SNP agreed to vote 1,2,3,4 putting their party in the 1 and 2 positions, is this the outcome?
There seemed to be a very unhappy and not speaking Red badges
Oh nothing wrong
Well said, agree 100% with you, NS is conning the electorate.
The FM did not meet with the “Westminster group”. She met with the Scottish government. It is the government that sits in the parliament of GB as per the terms of the treaty. The administration sits in Holyrood.
There will be no referendum in 2023. What measures have been put in place to ensure an honest and truly Scottish opinion poll would be had? Both the voting system and the electoral office are officially England’s.
Scotland needs to assert its sovereignty in all matters. The second best option which could be carried out with immediate effect is the suspension of the treaty. The best being its dissolution through proclamation. There is no shortage of reasons to do so and as a sovereign nation state in an international Agreement Scotland has the supreme authority to do so. It does not need to wait for an election as the Scottish government are already imbued with Scots sovereign authority and hold a government majority.
The 1st Minister did meet with the SNP Westminster group and discussed planB with Angus Brendan McNeil
https://www.barrheadboy.com/albas-neale-hanvey-reveals-scottish-governments-fake-independence-promise/
Hello. The resident Yoon here. I was agent for the Labour candidate in Midlothian and at the count was watching them fix the piles before electronic counting. You could see upside down the votes. Right beside me was the 2 SNP candidates and they were sniggering and giggling when an ALBA vote was marked. One of the candidates got through on the first vote. The 2nd SNP candidate , a silly wee giggling laddie if you ask me , came 4th with 572 votes . The Tory candidate had 930 in 3rd. Labour were miles out in 2nd. When we were taken in the room to be told who won ect , and explained where the votes were divided up went. All ALBA went to the SNP laddie. Most of the Green went to the SNP laddie then most of the votes from the winning FPP SNP candidate went to the laddie. He landed up with over double of the votes he got at FPP. 2 SNP got in this way and the SNP got Midlothian on this. They returned 8 out of 12. Labour returned 7 out of 8. Before the start my man was told by one of the SNP high heed ones that a coup is on its way on the Saturday when every SNP branch was ordered to have an AGM the next day. This duly happened and the SNP leader in Midlothian was duly ousted after being in the job months. They have had about 9 leaders in 9 years. Heard also reports of Perth SNP meeting landed up in an uproar also. Happy campers I say. Jist saying. Cup final a week on Saturday. Who cares about politics.
Can you tell us more about the Perth meeting? What caused the uproar? Was this the SNP group of councillors?
What happened at Perth SNP?
Allegedly at their first meeting after the election there was a screaming and shouting match with walkouts. We were told by someone high up in Midlothian “before” the count that there was to be an AGM the next day with changing the leader top of the agenda. The vote went 4-4 and the leader stood down . Nearly all the ALBA votes I witnessed when standing there was accompanied by SNP2+3. None of the SNP votes I witnessed has ALBA anywhere. All ALBA votes went to the SNP candidate who came miles back in 4th.
Spot on about using the claim of right to dissolve the Treaty and then holding a referendum on whether to rejoin the union taking control of the vote through the Scottish Parliament and a Scottish Electoral Commission that is not controlled by the Tories like the counting machines we all saw last week with IDOX plastered all over them . Scotland would not allow its election counts to be run and counted by a former member of a foreign government,
On Saturday people from across the YES movement will march side by side in our largest city. They will shout What do we want ? |Independence . When do we want it .? NOW . Yet the only party standing for that last week was wiped out at the polls by many of the same people making that statement . BUT if they really mean it and want to move the discussion away from internecine party strife then the two events being held in July by the SSRG and Salvo in Stirling and Dunfermline on |July 2nd and 30th respectively could be the way forward because only the people can do it without parties . Both Sara Salyers said it at the Alba conference and Ian Blackford repeated it during the most important commons speech he makes in a parliamentary session . In Ireland the people decided during a pandemic and it took their politicians 3 years to catch up . Scotland has a constitution . The people should adopt it , revoke the Treaty of Union, and hold a confirmatory referendum whether to rejoin the union or not .
Dave I posted this comment on WOS in response to a comment by a person named Ebok who said they had recd a ALBA communication from Alex Salmond
twathater says:
14 May, 2022 at 3:04 pm
@ Breeks 12.59pm , the message posted by Ebok from Alex Salmond is EXTREMELY UNDERWHELMING , he talks about not giving up or giving in THEN concedes the whole direction and control of independence to the Snivelling Nasty Perverts who have PROVEN over the last 8 years they have NO interest in independence , WHERE is the FIGHT where is the DETERMINATION all I see is mealy mouthed talk
Not only that the AUOB March today will either be heralded as a great success and a great endorsement for nicoliar if the turnout is good , OR if the turnout is BAD ALBA will get the blame for dividing the yes movement , the march will NOT be about the DEMAND OR SUPPORT for independence
IF AUOB wanted a true reflection of support for independence they would hold a DEMONSTRATION MARCH to INSIST Sturgeon names a fixed date for a ref and ALSO COMMITS TO A PLEBISCITE ELECTION in EVERY ELECTION even snp sycophants couldn’t disagree with that
Alba needs to radically differentiate itself from the SNP, and very, very quickly. Offering the public yet more small “c” conservative, business-as-usual, Scottish politics isn’t the way, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to vote Alba 1 last week; but it was an “independence-activist vote”, pure and simple. I would’ve been many times happier had I been able to vote for an avowedly anti-colonialist party. There’s a huge political narrative to be picked-up there, along with countless examples and instances which prove beyond any doubt that Scotland, England’s most profitable colony, ever, must liberate itself and become an independent and normal sovereign entity in the world. It’s a vision of the future that, in the end, will inspire the people. Business-as-usual type politicking with 43.73% turn-outs, is clearly inspiring very few of us. You have my full respect, nonetheless, Craig, for getting out there and doing your damnedest to bring change about!
“Some thing I wondered about was the result
If labour and the SNP agreed to vote 1,2,3,4 putting their party in the 1 and 2 positions, is this the outcome?
There seemed to be a very unhappy and not speaking to other Red badges”
Here is what I’m saying Labour have done a deal with the SNP , here is where Labour have been shafted,Labour has done the deal at grassroot level but grassroot SNP level in control is direct NS level, NS level want direct control of councils
They have done a deal, that they have zero control over, at grassroot level GRA and all the other crap
In a year or so’s time they are going to get a hell of a shock
Somebody just say I’m wrong
Alba started with great enthusiasm. And it has great potential.
Sadly, some of the enthusiasts who scrambled to take grandiose local positions, or should one say titles, have done absolutely nothing to build their areas. No meetings, no interactions with members, no attempt to grow the group. There is only so much stalwarts with high profiles like Salmond, MacAskill, Harvey et al can do. And of course over recent years choking off shutting down all branch and Constituency meetings was very much an SNP tactic to disengage activity and group participation. However to grow our party we need to get the local areas working, growing and engaging.members and other independence supporters.
When you look at how people came out from everywhere in he run up to the referendum one can see how getting people engaged delivers in spades.
By the way, what is a LACU.
Local Authority Campaign Unit. LACU
I want an independent Scotland without Sturgeon.
Sturgeon the charlatan must go ,even her own party must see this creature for what she is.
The SNP ,MPs and MSPs Betray the Scottish people every day by their complicit submissiveness in her distruction of the Scottish state. We need people with a will to fight for our democracy, sovereignty and rights ,stand asid those who do not have that courage.
Hi Roddy, readers and thanks for your article and comments Craig.
In either a currently unionised or independent Scotland, never again would I wish for our future Scottish First / Prime Minister to have been a practicing lawyer, and be that a failed or proven one at that.
It feels like we’re in the calm before the… calm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYYpP6ag5aM
Are we all pure raring tae go for independence?! It’s (needs to be) the People of iScotland’s move next n now!
~ Here’s the bird that learned to fly, here’s the tree that touched the sky, hear the bell yes hear it ring and then the fish began to swim ~
Glasgow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vQLZ1fDN_g (topical)