And so it begins. Or doesn’t. 2020 has barely started and the #indyref2020 hype is already faltering. Actually, the signs were there even before 2019 was consigned to the bin marked ‘annus horribilis’. Which, disappointingly doesn’t mean ugly arsehole. Or maybe I was reading too much into all the talk of decades rather than years.
Kenny MacAskill certainly doesn’t seem uncomfortable with a year turning into a decade. I agree with him that the chances of a new referendum in 2020 are probably nil. I have been saying as much for a while now. Much to the annoyance of those who prefer their politics with a sprinkle of faerie dust. It’s really just a matter of counting up the ways that Nicola Sturgeon has of making it happen, supposing she wanted to, then compare with the ways Boris Johnson has of stopping it, as well as his all too evident eagerness to do so. It’s no contest. The referendum loses. No credible scenario leads to referendum in the second half of 2020. No amount of wishful thinking will change that. Unless you have another use for those unicorn tears, you might as well stop telling it My Little Pony is prettier.
Where Mr MacAskill and I part company is in our very different attitudes to this non-magical reality. I cannot possibly agree with his conclusion that further delay is “no bad thing”. And let’s be clear about what further delay means. If the new referendum doesn’t appear out of a multi-coloured cloud of sweet-scented smoke by late this year, it will be at least another year before it is even possible. on account of the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2021. It could be much longer. Because the Brexit farce goes into act three at the end of January and by year’s end everybody will have lost their trousers and had an embarrassing encounter with Aunt Harriet’s aspidistra before the curtain comes down on the transition period.
It could be never. Because the foregoing account looks positively rose-tinted compared to one which takes account of what the British political elite will be getting up to while Pete Wishart & The Postponers are on their ‘Optimum Time’ tour performing their hit single ‘Gentle Persuasion’ on doorsteps the length and breadth of Scotland and Kenny MacAskill makes a start on restoring the Volkswagen camper van – which has been rusting in Blair Jenkins’ garage for over five years – as part of the preparations for getting ready to start the lead-up to the campaign that the SNP somehow hasn’t found time to work on because they were too busy prancing about with their gold underpants on over their black tights pretending to be the super-hero who was going to stop Brexit.
I read the extracts from Kenny MacAskill’s article for the Scottish Left Review and I discover that what used to be the campaign to restore Scotland’s independence before it became the campaign to restrain England’s insanity may now be about to undergo a startling transformation into the campaign for turning Holyrood into the Wolfie Smith Memorial Commune for Happy Clappies, Righteous Radicals and the Kaleidoscope Collective for Random Reform (dress code keffiyehs and Guy Fawkes masks).
Call me old-fashioned, but I liked it when it was the Scottish independence campaign and the closest anybody got to wearing a keffiyeh was when somebody’s giant Saltire got wrapped around their neck on the breezy approaches to Nelson Mandela Place, blessedly stifling their irksomely irrelevant chants of “Tories out!” on one of those AUOB marches for, among other things, independence etcetera etcetera etcetera.
What the hell happened to that campaign?
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Peter A Bell 
As far as I’m concerned MacAskill falls into the same category as wishart and Alyn Smith , they are ALL seat warmers , they lack drive , determination , passion and energy to fight for our independence , as with smith he came out with a heartfelt ???? plea to the EU to keep a light on for Scotland then almost immediately planked his arse down in Stirling , that should have awakened us that Blackford’s repeated statements that Scotland will NOT be dragged out of the EU was early pantomime for the hungry gullible
If I were the EU I would be worried about my electricity bill for keeping that light on as the gradualist postponers are in no hurry to write a new record
Maybe the gradualist postponers are unaware or unconcerned that bozo and the death cult band are determined to introduce a new recording contract ( constitution ) that will ensure that ALL current and future hits will be under their new label ( The One Nation Tory Label )
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As I said a few days ago, senior figures in SNP appear to be trying to soften us up for the big let down, in the hope, it would seem, we meekly accept it.
We have yet to hear what the First Minister has to say.
But I did see a bit in the news, where she said Scotland will have to now mitigate Brexit. That was in part of the FM’s New Year thing.
Well, we ain’t gonna accept it.
Too much time has already been wasted.
You have asked, Peter, a number of times, and gotten no answers, how ScotGovt, can stop us being taken out of EU against our will, as promised by MP Blackford, often enough. And now,we appear to be getting that answer, well, .. kind of, .., in this “mitigating Brexit” bit. Basically, they are also telling us, admitting,, they ain’t gonna stop Scotland being taken out of EU, now. They can’t.
Not unless the First Minster stands up in Parliament in Edinburgh and declares the Union at an end!
Too much time and effort was blown away, on trying to stop Brexit, and too much hope, on a hung UK Parliament.
That was never a wise approach.
With Brexit now almost upon us, waiting any longer than we’ve already done, is just not going to wash.
SNP leadership have to act now. If they don’t, they will need to be replaced by others.
As for MacAskill, I’ve never had anytime for him, especially after the Police and Fire merger, which I have always been against, and still am against.
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It’s a bit like signing up for military service to go to war, then shooting yourself in the foot… it time to move up a gear or two, not go into reverse.
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Macaskill is a wooden character, who speaks in short clipped sentences. He sounds like a CID officer making a statement to the press.
Not impressed with him. Spends a lot of time writing anti yes stuff for the Scotsman. Always eager to slate the yes movement to get Brownie points with the MSM.
When Boris sends that refusal. I expect more guff about it being unsustainable blah, blah.
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The reason it is no bad thing is that we are all supposed to turn on the UK government when we don’t get IndyRef. We are supposed to make them give it to us – not for us to touch our forelock and say ‘thankyou Sir, 3 bags full Sir’ but for us to turn around and say ‘About blddy time too’. I believe there is value in making them give it to us.
But, hey, let’s turn on each other instead. It makes sense that if Scots don’t get what they want, they should turn on each other, rather than on the party in all of this which is withholding what is ours.
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Bollocks. 200,000 Yes voters being kicked out of Scotland. 50,000 english no voters swamping Scotland every year while forcing our youngsters to emigrate for work. Take your delay and ram it up mhairy hunter’s flange.
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What perchance is a “flange”? That and your deliberate distortion of a person’s name sound unpleasantly misogynistic to me. Elsewhere racist as well. Not a good look for the new Scotland you pretend to want. How many precious new converts to indy do you think your intemperate outburst has won?
Or lost?, you jerk.
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It’s not about “turning on each other”, but of making clear to SNP leadership, they have got to make an effort to get Independence. That is what they have promised us, no less.
It was SNP leadership who kept insisting Scotland would not be taken out of EU against its will.
It was SNP who insisted that was going to happen, and they wouldn’t let it happen.
It has been asked of them, how it isn’t going to happen, and how they gonna stop it?
It is SNP leadership, who spent the last 3 and a bit years trying to stop Brexit.
Ind fact, that was their slogan o the General Election campaign bus.
Independence was much mentioned by them. Not in the way it should have been.
Everything has been focused on Brexit, and their only strategy on Independence, has been to beg London’s “permission”, when we should be telling London, we are going to do this, whether they like it or not.
How is begging London for anything going to help?
And London has already refused it’s approval, by simply ignoring the First Minister’s 2017 plea.
Alas for the First Minister, and Scotland, that non response from Theresa Ma, went unchallenged.
Folks are getting restless. Time has run oit. SNP wee well warned by Independence supporters, and all have been ignored… Thersa May style.
Those wanting Independence, are not turning on each other, but it is more the case, we are not going to just sit back, and allow senior figures in SNP, to hit us with waffle about being “nice” to the enemies of Scotland, and that we have to wait, and wait, to suit the likes of MacAskill.
He might want to wait for long enough, but Scotland can’t wait any more.
And Scots have turned on those who are not giving us what is rightfully ours, Be that the tory, or Lib Dems, and especially Labour, who totally betrayed this country in 2014.
SNP will go the same way as Labour, being replaced by others, if they keep up ith their present route.
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Colonised mind.
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Exactly Penguin. Then the betrayal! Those EU citizens in Scotland who are let down by Sturgeon and Blackford’s empty promises.
What have they done to physically stop these people losing their rights. But equally important , what about my EU citizenship. I am still raging that they are letting Boris steal this from me.
We simply don’t have time to fanny about with converting eejits who refuse to see the truth.
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Well, we do agree about that, anyway. And about the need to maintain the momentum gained by the recent election results (even including Wishart, MacAskill et al). However things pan out, this new year could well be the one that finally breaks this damned decrepit Union.
I just fail to see though how your relentless gloom and nay-saying can possibly achieve anything positive. The more it continues, the less influential and the more irrelevant you become. Which would be a pity. I feel you are capable of so much more.
And this particular new negativity over the upcoming, very timely and (possibly largest ever) AUOB march couldn’t possibly be motivated by another wee personal niggle at not being invited to speak afterwards, could it…?
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