Many months ago, long before formation of Alba Party, this site was pleading with Nicola Sturgeon to unite the movement. I suggested time and again to declare May an Independence Plebiscite. I suggested that as an act of good faith she should shelf the HCB and GRA Reform till post independence as these issues were proving very divisive to the SNP and the YES Movement. My pleadings, of course, went unheeded. Again on the day before she was to give evidence to the discredited Fabiani Inquiry I again pleaded for unity.
I suggested that she should have a mea culpa moment and accept that her government had badly handled the entire Alex Salmond Investigations. I opined that if she accepted that Lord Pentland’s Judgement that her government had acted Unfairly, Unlawfully and with Apparent bias she would gain great respect. I went on to suggest that she should apologise not only to the two ladies that made the original complaints but also to Alex Salmond as he more than anyone else had been wronged by her governments incompetence.
We know this fell on deaf ears and in fact she did the exact opposite. It was everyone else’s fault. She had done nothing wrong and if there had been any wrongdoing it wasn’t by her, she wasn’t there that day, someone else had voted for something else. She couldn’t recall, she would need to get back to the committee and by the way she was the biggest victim because Alex Salmond is an evil man and the jury’s verdict was wrong. Incredible doesn’t come close to describe her actions that day.
Even after that appalling appearance I pleaded for unity. This site and many others promoted voting SNP in the Constituency and Alba in the List. This was to win an Independence super majority, unite the movement and proceed rapidly towards independence.
Again nothing, no matter how many times and no matter how many people pleaded for unity, Nicola Sturgeon just ignored her fellow independence supporters.
Worse still, using the British MSM and Media, she attacked Alex Salmond and The Alba Party! What should also be noted is that the vast majority of Alba’s 5,000 + members are all ex-SNP. They have helped build the party into the giant of Scottish politics. Nicola Sturgeon showed no cognisance of that simple fact. She unleashed her fanboys and girls against her fellow independinistas. It seems Nicola will turn on anyone if they don’t bend to her narrow bigoted will. We now know that she will stab anyone in the back without a moments hesitation, including 5,000 ex-colleagues.Those of you remaining in the Party should never forget that.
Using British State apparatus to demean abuse and undermine genuine independence supporters is unforgivable, however that is exactly what Nicola Sturgeon and many of her closest allies proceeded to do throughout this recent campaign.She attacked pro independence people and never bothered attacking the Unionists or Greens, now she is beholding to both. Worse still, so is Scotland! Why so few of the SNP devoted stopped to think why the media was helping SNP to defeat The Alba Party is a mystery to me. Greeks bearing gifts and all that!
When the results started to come in there was much joy in the SNP camp. Seat after seat retained and even a few unionist seats fell to SNP. The irony being that two of them Ayr and Banff it was due to Alba supporters doing as they were advised and supporting The SNP in the Constituency.Sadly, the SNP faithful did not reciprocate.
On Friday as the news began to filter through that an Alba breakthrough was unlikely much joy spread among the SNP’s faithful. They had crushed a fellow independence party. Their Facebook posts and Twitter tweets were ones of unbridled joy and nastiness, they had stopped an Independence Super Majority! They had stopped another independence party gaining a foothold at Holyrood. That would show those horrible independence supporting Alba people.How the Unionists laughed!
Then the reality of Sturgeon’s vindictive stupidity began to show in the results. While Sturgeon had been ensuring there was no independence tactical voting or gaming the system.The Unionists had quietly been preparing their tactics. They would do the exact opposite, tactical voting/gaming the system by the Unionists would prevent the stupid SNP from getting a majority.
On checking the results, a clear pattern emerged, the Unionist, had out thought the SNP. If it was a Tory seat, the Labour and Liberal voters, voted Tory to keep the SNP out. In Labour and Liberal seats, the Tories reciprocated to keep the SNP out. Meanwhile on the List the SNP voted to let the Unionists in and keep the independence MSPs out, pure genius Nicola, way to go! .
When Alba first launched the alarm bells were ringing throughout the unionist world. The Tories offered to stand down candidates to aid the Union. Fluffy Mundell told the media Alba were the biggest danger to the union not the SNP. The anti-Scottish MSM so favoured by Sturgeon throughout the election went into full attack mode. Not against the hated SNP, against the Alba Party. It seems everyone but Sturgeon and her cabal saw, the threat to the union,The Alba, Party, not the SNP! Even that hater of all things Scottish History Woman highlighted the extreme danger to the union by Nationalist tactical voting. The Unionists listened and acted. The SNP leadership was too full of hatred and vindictiveness to listen. As always what Nicola wants, Nicola gets was applied. Her ineptitude over strategy and progressing independence was there for all to see. Sadly there is nobody strong enough or wise enough to stand up to this strategically devoid woman.
So it came to pass, Nicola’s stupidity crushed The Alba Party at the ballot box. The Unionists tactical and strategic awareness saved them from total destruction and left them in a very strong position. While the Nicola fan boys and girls gloated and bated fellow independence supporters the Unionists pissed themselves with laughter. They had gamed the Holyrood voting system and had won the union another reprieve. This had been a greater danger than 2014. Fortunately for the Unionists Sturgeon is not strategically aware and her fan base were indeed too stupid to work it out.
1,094,374. List Votes for two MSPs 547,187 Votes for each SNP List MSP! Sturgeon destroyed our chance to be talking today about beginning independence negotiations with Westminster. Instead, she will play at being the big fish in the small Holyrood Devolved pond. Independence has once again been kicked down the road. In the coming years of this Parliament, you will hear numerous reasons why independence cannot be advanced. You will also see how rapidly GRA Reform will be advanced. You will see Harvie making more and more ridiculous demands on Sturgeon and her caving in every time. You will see The Tories in England taking more and more control while Holyrood supplicates for ‘A little more power sir, a little more funding sir.’ Then come the UK General Election of 2024 Sturgeon or Robertson whoever leads the SNP will ask the Sheeple for one more mandate and the Unionists will just laugh.
I take no comfortΒ that I have written exactly how this would unfold. I have written time and again of the consequences for Scotland if we didn’t unite. Sturgeon ensured we never united she has divided the movement. Her actions have delayed independence. There will be a terrible price to pay. How she thinks that Scotland’s best chance of recovery from Brexit and Covid involves Westminster Tories defies all logic. We need the levers of Independence to do what is best for Scotland. Sturgeon may have crushed the Alba Party at the ballot box, however Scotland lost the election.
could not agree more. 1000000+ votes for 2 seats and a net gain of 1 seat is crazy
1. March 2017
Sturgeon: We want a referendum because of the Brexit vote in E&W.
May: Now is not the time.
Sturgeon: Oh all right, I’ll reset.
2. January 2020
Sturgeon: We want a referendum because Brexit has happened.
Johnson: No, you can’t have one for a generation or a lifetime.
Sturgeon: Oh well: nothing ventured, nothing gained.
3. May 2021
Sturgeon: We want a referendum sometime because of the Holyrood Election outcome.
Johnson/PM: It’s reckless and not a priority.
Sturgeon:
I’ll leave you and others to predict what might happen and fill in the gaps on what might be Nicola Sturgeon’s latest response as appropriate.
Absolutely spot on.
Only slight disagreement I have is that ‘gaming the system’ thing. Im sure you use the term ironically. It’s a term no one used til Sturgeon claimed this was Alba’s approach, despite the same tactic being employed by other parties.
The system can’t be gamed but the SNP faithful have.
I am indeed using it ironically!
Brilliant well thought out article. Sums it all up..what a waste. What an evil woman she truly is.
She said before the election that it was not about independence. It’s reported in The National this morning, however, that she is saying she won’t rule out IndyRef2 before the Spring of 2022. I guess a referendum is not independence! So, she didn’t lie!
She may not have ruled it out, but she most certainly hasnβt ruled it in. A wee look back thru The National headlines since 2014 will show just how many times IndyRef2 is βcomingβ, βinevitableβ, something that Westminster or Johnson or May βcanβt stand in the way ofβ.
NS talks a fantastic game but, as far as indyref2 goes, she will not deliver.
I donβt know when I have been more upset! I agree with everything you have written, unfortunately. Does the FM have any concept of unity? Itβs not just unity with the Independence movement thatβs important, as her own party is now riddled with division, the country as a whole is divided, and if she canβt even unify her party, how can she unify the country to vote for Independence? The tribalism going on just now is horrific. There is no debate, only abuse and smear. Yet she sails on, while the party becomes more & more undemocratic & autocratic.The movement has taken its eye off the ball – WE have taken our eye off the ball & this is the end result. How can we fix it?
Personally, I find the SNP accolades gloating the worst of the lot, “Haha! your ALBA party were trounced”. As IF they were EVER the enemy.
Sure, I get the ones who don’t follow politics and merely carried out the SNPs mantra of #BothVotesSNP but there are people that I have followed (and vice versa) for years on Twitter that were positively ecstatic at the prospect of having another 46 unionist list MSPs instead of 30 odd pro-indy MSPs, WTF is wrong with these people? Could they not see that they were being played by the SNP and their useful idiots?
Even now after the event when everything that was said to them has come to pass they’re STILL going on about how great it was that ALBA got no seats and Annie Wells & Murdo Fraser are safely back into the Parliament they’d like to close.
It could all have been so different IF we’d had a team player rather than a control freak at the head of our Scottish Government. So here we are, back to the status quo and indy booted even further down the road,
Whatever happened to the Grand old Duke of York? I ask because we have our very own Duchess at Scotlands helm.
Your words have helped me calm down. Thank you Barrhead Boy. I have been commenting on Stephen Patonβs article on Alex and Alba in the National today. It is an absolutely disgusting diatribe. I took a wee look at his Twitter account. He has a photo of him and a pal drinking in a pub. They both appeared to be wearing their grannies wigs. That is why we need Alba and its policies. Thanks again Roddy. It was really important to be able to come here and read your blog. There is still sanity in the independence movement,
Jan, I stopped buying/looking at the National over a year ago – their coverage of Salmonds persecution was the final straw for me. The National is just a Sturgeon mouthpiece.
Did all the columnists have to sign a loyalty to Sturgeon document? Or is it just like in the BBC/Britnat papers they know what they have to do to keep the money flowing in to their bank accounts so no formal loyalty doc needs to be signed.
Jan I suspect young Paton may well have had her Stephanie pronouns in use when that was penned… it was a truly vile article.
Spot on. Despite Alba and its supporters promoting SNP 1st vote and both votes yes and explaining how the system works they were made out to be the big bad bogeyman by the status quo parties. Their desire to maintain their position in office rather than advance independence revealed them for the charlatans that they are. As predicable as ever, The National ran with ANOTHER indy is on front page when in truth they just handed the reins of governance once again to the English government. Unlike every independent country in the world and indeed the country they are in union with, England, the Scottish government and the Scottish Greens genuinely believe they are incapable of governing the country through a national crisis and its recovery while also ending a trade agreement with an openly hostile trading partner. And worse, that they believe that the recovery should be in the hands of that openly hostile trading partner! Proving that they do not believe Scotland is capable of being an independent nation state. Normal countries are capable of doing both – seeing through a national crisis and continuing the business of governance which includes ending agreements that are not in the best interests of the country. Amazingly, Scotland alone it seems is incapable of doing both. And to add insult to injury new MSPs are saying that waiting another 10-25 years is acceptable while others are still saying they need permission from a foreign country’s government to assert their fundamental rights! Just how incompetent and subservient do they see Scotland?
During the campaign they went out the way to portray Alba as the big bad and colluded with the English establishment to blacklist Alba, even going so far as to lie to their own support base. They refused point blank to work with Alba for the betterment of Scotland, gladly accepted the extra votes without so much as a thank you and now having deliberately let the English parties back into the parliament of Scotland they want Alba to get behind them and gift them more support while their support is saying they should set up a sister party for the SNP to do exactly what Alba asked them to do with them to maximise the returns! The utter audacity. Alba and its supporters who come from all sections of Scotland will always work to the betterment of Scotland and reasserting its statehood but as the saying goes, you do not bite the hand that feeds you. They not only bit the hand, they attempted to remove it.
For those who genuinely want an independent Scotland, Alba’s door is always open.
In 2014, I was one of the 45% who voted ‘YES’
In 2021, I was one of the 45,000 who voted ALBA (and 45k of us LOANED our 1st vote to the SNP)
What year will it be when Sturgeon ignores her 45th mandate, and her fanboys begin to suspect they’ve been had? (2045 perhaps? π )
For the past few years I have wondered why NS “The most dangerous woman in Britain” never felt the need to attack the MSM to defend herself and Scotland yet she was relentless and venomous with her attacks on the independence Bloggers who questioned her leadership and anyone that showed any support of Alex Salmond. Then it all became clear. The UK media is part of the political game/charade. It is a pantomime being played out for the people to make them believe that there is such a thing as democracy, freedom and choice. The leading politicians and media owners know it is a game and everyone else is simply a pawn in the game. Therefore, any criticism of NS from the MSM has no affect because its simply the game. However, criticism from Bloggers and supporters of Alex Salmond is very real and it hits home like a juggernaut. The critics highlight her flaws, her weaknesses, her failures, her lies and her real personality. It is the reality that she can’t handle because it lays bare the real woman and her real strategy for Scotland and independence. She knows what she is and she doesn’t like it. What’s more, is that she doesn’t want others to see what she see’s and know what she knows about herself. When you accept that she is part of the UK establishment it all makes perfect sense.
Hi Alan, little to disagree with there. I’m a wee bit concerned, though, about the association you make between Sturgeon and the UK establishment.There’s much evidence to suggest that she is more accurately charectarised as being part of the Scottish establishment. We rarely hear much about our indigenous establishment; the people who actually run Scotland and who remain in their positions of power and influence no matter which political party wins the election. They’re the faceless people who desperately need the union to continue unhindered, certainly not you or I, or the vast majority of Scots. To suggest that the SNP has become the political-arm of the Scottish establishment and the MSM its propaganda-arm, may sound like an extreme depiction at this point-in-time, but maybe just a little less so after last Thursday’s outcome. The problem may lie much closer to home than many of us once imagined.
Josef, I agree with your assessment but it raises the question, how then do we put the Scottish establishment on the defensive?
Set aside our revulsion at NS’s traits of character, some of which are downright evil, and let us focus on the tools she uses with remarkable success to perfect control – over the party, over the country’s establishment. What can shake the Scottish establishment out of its torpor? I suggest, only if its reputation suffers serious blows internationally.
The most serious is vulnerability to the charge of corruption in the legal system. That embarrasses. As it becomes more widely known it can impact the views of other EU countries. Left wingers are not the only people with some moral fibre! Scotland is now the only democracy in Western Europe where the Executive controls and has profoundly corrupted the Prosecution service. We should be hammering that point at every opportunity. I am sure there are many in the upper reaches of the Scottish Establishment – like Roddy Dunlop for eg – deeply worried about the decline of legal standards. The trio of judges in Craig Murray’s case now face probable scrutiny of their judgment in Strasbourg via the UK SC. That cannot make them feel comfortable. The Lord Advocate has cost the country Β£ tens of millions through malicious prosecution.
I noticed that when a prominent mag like the Atlantic researched their NS story, they interviewed a feminist Alba candidate (McAllister?) who chose careful words to defend, but not too enthusiastically, AS. Wrong, McAllister! Just hammer the ONE point repeatedly so it gets into the international media: NS has corrupted the rule of law in Scotland. There are too many confusing details in the Salmond case and Fabiani enquiry – keep it simple. Sturgeon is a danger to the rule of law.
In fact, one of the few useful things our two Alba MPs could do while at Westminster is push for legislation to remove the Lord Advocate from the ScotGov cabinet and this from Sturgeon’s control.
When the next parliament resumes I would like to see a motion put forward by at least one SNP MSP to the effect that a real actual date for negotiations for independence is set (this is not the same as a date for IndyRef2). If this motion is rejected then they’ve got every excuse to resign from the SNP and to join Alba. If that doesn’t happen then they are all cowards or anti-independence or both. I suspect the latter.
We would all like to see that Brenda I doubt though we will, the MSPs are in fear of the wrath of the Queen Bee. She has, shown in her willingness to throw people under the bus try to falsely imprison an innocent man and continue to smear and attack same innocent man that nobody 8s brave enough to challenge her yet. I fear when someone does muster enough courage it will be too late for the SNP. They don’t know it yet, but they are a busted flush. This was their last big hurrah!
Bravehearts in the SNP MSPs – what a sad pathetic bunch they are. Cowed by Sturgeon. Cowards the lot them ππππππAlasdair Allan – what a snivelling toady.
I sincerely hope you are right about that. Coming from Belfast I can readily appreciate the lengths that some will go to in order to stop what they see as the break up of the UK including amongst other things: gerrymandering, internment without trial, media blackouts, disinformation, Diplock Courts and paid perjurers. I can understand when Unionists get up to those tactics, because I would expect that from them, but it’s immeasurably worst when it’s done by your former comrades. We need to learn from every battle we face and alter the tactics and strategy to suit the circumstances. Alex is right to continue on and for Alba to fight in the next elections which, as you know, are by PR. There’s many a party that would love to have 5k active members after only a matter of weeks. That’s a solid foundation to go into the council elections and to call out the SNP for the Unionists they’ve become.
I’m just lost for words. Totally sickened and despair at the stupidity and gullibility of the voters; but what really rankles is the obscene amusement and delight in acting in bad faith that these Sturgeon acolytes are showing. This behavior that she has whipped up has the putrid stink of fascism.
BB: excellent. Alba should not give up, but build and grow stronger. Some day, it might be called upon to challenge The SNP as Sinn Fein eventually had to challenge the establishment party of independence in Ireland which also became too cosy with Westminster.
Parallel to that, we should now concentrate on the GRA Reform and hit it hard in the gonads by calling for the abolition of the 2004 GRA, now superseded by the same sex marriage legislation. It serves no purpose except as the base for reform of itself, so that’s where to start. It was the ground that should never have been ceded to Stonewall and the trans lobby, but too late now.
Another push for another referendum might be on the cards, because the SNP leadership will find it much harder now to prevaricate, but it will take time to ask Johnson for another S30 Order, which, of course, he will refuse, then get a bill ready at Holyrood, where the Unionists will try to delay as much as possible, and the treacherous Greens will have to be relied upon.
That will be challenged in both the Scottish and Supreme courts by Westminster as flouting parliamentary sovereignty. They will win that argument, leaving absolutely nowhere to turn, which might just be what the SNP wants? Look, we’ve tried, but we can’t get it, so, hey, what can we do? The refusal to build a case to take to the UN after 2014 has come back to bite us, but, again, wasn’t that the SNP preferred way? Nothing was done to make the case for indy after 2016 either, so that’s that.
Fighting the GRA Reform bill, which will be released soon, will weaken the SNP and Greens and give Alba time to grow, but, if Johnson accelerates his bid to bring us into a Greater England masquerading as the UK, and downgrading Holyrood to a peripheral talking shop, it will not have the necessary time.
What might happen is that The SNP 1 and 2 will finally see the light, but I wouldn’t bank on it. No, what is done now must be hard-hitting, gloves off, attack from all sides and kick swiftly in the gonads at every opportunity. Co-ordinated guerrilla ‘warfare’. This is no time to be feeling kind and nice, not when our survival as a nation, and our survival as a sex within that nation, depend on it.
Around that, approach the UN and indicate that we have no way out of the UK except by force of arms now. No one wants that (except maybe Westminster so that it has an excuse to occupy us). No one wants more any more disruption and upheaval on the periphery of Europe, and certainly not in Scotland off whose northern and north-eastern coasts, not to mention the western coastal waters, Russia probes constantly. They want an ally – maybe they would settle for our geo-strategic position without the nukes? We won’t know till we try. Meantime, make approaches to EFTA, too because going back into the EU now would not be a good idea.
Anyone who has the stamina might like to read Sheila Jeffrey’s 2018 essay, “Enforcing menβs sexual rights in international human rights law” – a real eye-opener and suggestive of the real agenda of Stonewall and the trans lobby. Also, if you have a strong stomach, google Denton’s support of the trans lobby/Stonewall. Then, there’s all the American corporations that are investing heavily in the trans issues. You can google these, too. This information will show that the GRA Reform is a much wider and invasive entity than most people realise, and goes to the heart of Western society’s liberal ethos, to neoliberal capitalism and to corrupt legal services designed to undermine democratic institutions. These all feed into SNP policy in a number of areas: economic; social; political. Its sweetener is that there will eventually be no barriers to any form of sexual practice, as both Queer Theory and Sheila Jeffrey’s essay show.
Let’s look at the positives. 5000+ members, and forgive me for not having the figures to hand, but not a bad vote. I understand that Alex Salmond polled over 800 votes. That’s not half bad for a party that’s been in existence for a few weeks. Alba can start building from here on.
All those Sturgeon cultists who used to reply to any criticisms of Sturgeons leadership by saying look at the polls when they were regularly at 58% for independence have gone very quite on that front now that they have dropped down to 50% .
The numbers in Holyrood are basically the same as the previous parliament when it voted twice for an independence referendum but nothing was done by Sturgeon.
Sturgeon took over the SNP in 2015 when it had a majority in Holyrood. She has now had two goes at it in 2016 and 2021 and failed to deliver a majority despite polls showing high 50s for the SNP not that long ago.
She is a failure – the only question is whether she is happy with the result because she wanted it or is she just not good enough as the leader of the independence cause. Personally, I think she is a fraud who will never deliver independence.
Do you think there’s any likelihood of any disillusioned SNP MSP’s defecting over to ALBA in the foreseeable future?
I know several were hoping for an Alba presence
Presumably it only needs a few defectors to take the power away from Sturgeon?
And no doubt it was evident to the party hierarchy and donors. They could not afford to lose any more representatives so went on the attack in the hopes of retaining them.
Daft question: can an MSP represent another party in the parliament if the party they join has no representation in it? They can after all join the party as MSPs.
Yes or they can be an independent. We elect individuals not parties.
That was my understanding but don’t think I’ve come across the situation in Scotland before where the representative joins a party that isn’t represented in parliament. Thanks, BB
Michelle Ballantyne was elected to the Scottish Parliament as a Conservative.
By the end of last term she was the Scottish leader of and only MSP for the Reform Party.
If anyone didn’t realise that Sturgeon’s first instinct would be to crush her allies before her enemies, then they haven’t been reading their history.
The People’s Front of Judea hated the Judean People’s Front more than they hated the Romans, and they all hated the People’s Judean Front the most.
-at least the history I read ……………
nasty wee besom
Roddy . I will wage a tenner with anyone that Nicola won’t even request a Section 30 this year.
Apologies. I did mean to say that Alex polled over 8000 votes.
The SNP have become the Saintess Nicola Party.I’m glad I cancelled my membership when they went for Joanna Cherry which for me was the straw that broke the camels back.I hoped to see independence in my lifetime but I doubt I will now.
As has already been mentioned by others elsewhere, the big AUOB marches, when they eventually resume, will be a big opportunity for ALBA to recruit and grow fast. Folk who attend marches are those that don’t like waiting around. “Independence, when do we want it….. etc!” Yep, a lot of potential ALBA recruits there methinks. A fantastic opportunity. Imagine if even a fraction of the folk who marched in 2018-19 voted for ALBA last week, how many MSPs would we have by now? Out on the streets, chapping dooors, speaking to neighbours and marching – that’s where ALBA will find fertile ground to grow. π