“Simply astonishing. And we’re on 54% for Holyrood. Often see people on here saying we’re finished or they’re leaving the party. The Scottish people seem to like what we’re doing.” – Pete Wishart
Poor Pete! He just doesn’t get it. Maybe if he actually listened to some of the people who are “saying we’re finished or they’re leaving the party” he’d know that it has nothing to do with the SNP’s performance as an administration. As it is, he evidently hasn’t a clue why so many members are in despair at or angry with the party. More disturbingly, perhaps, he appears not to care. So long as the SNP is doing well in the polls, all is right with Pete’s wee world.
More troubling still is the fact that this disdain for what is rapidly becoming the pro-independence wing of the nominally pro-independence party extends all the way to the top. The higher echelons of the party have come to define success as being ahead in the polls and/or winning elections. Progressing the cause of independence has ceased to be a measure of success. Those who continue to consider it the principle measure of success are now seen as an impediment to ‘real’ success of the kind that delights Pete Wishart.
Of course, winning elections is important – as a means to an end. Being ahead in the polls is at least pleasing – to the extent that it suggests the means are being secured and the end made more certain. It’s not that the pro-independence wing of the SNP grudges the party its success by other measures. We just want the constitutional issue restored to due prominence.
As far as it’s possible to tell from his comments, Pete Wishart is unaware of this. He is oblivious to the concerns of the pro-independence portion of the membership because he has consistently and stubbornly refused to listen to those concerns. He has flatly refused to answer questions, even from his own constituents, and instantly blocks anyone who expresses the smallest doubt about his perspective or the wisdom of the party leadership.
You would think that members threatening to quit the party would be a matter of grave concern to the SNP hierarchy. But the reality is that the members who remain focused on the restoration of Scotland’s independence are viewed by the party leadership and senior management as at best a bit of a nuisance and even as a serious embarrassment. I have previously defended Wishart and his colleagues against charges that they were only interested in saving their seats. They make it increasingly difficult.
And please don’t bring up Covid-19. The situation I describe has developed over a period of around five years and was well established long before the current public health crisis. It didn’t happen overnight. But we have now reached a situation where some of the most influential people in the SNP are looking at the polls and attributing the party’s performance to the fact that the constitutional issue is being sidelined. And along with it those who deem Scotland’s cause to be of primary importance.
There we have the third measure by which the SNP leadership and management gauge their success . Along with winning elections and staying ahead in the polls, success is measured by how effectively they close down discussion of the constitutional issue and sideline the party’s growing pro-independence faction.
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Peter A Bell 
What will public opinion be, after the Pandemic and we’re into next year and there still isn’t a date for a independence referendum and there is no challenge to the section 30 order refusal, I have been a Independence supporter all my life, as well as an SNP member, but I’m not interested in the SNP’s politics, my interest are entirely the restoration of the Scottish Nation and for the occupation to come to a end. If Mr Salmond and Ms Cherry do start a new party then this is where my loyalty will lie, as I believe they are now our only hope to achieving Independence because both these politicians will fight Scotland conrer. I don’t believe I am being disloyal in this, but my top and only priority is the restoration of the Scottish Nation. I have made up my mind after the last Westminster election that I wouldn’t go out and vote in another Westminster election, it would be like I was advocating staying in this union, which I don’t. It’s funny how Westminster hasn’t and won’t, put on hold Brexit, but I’m not surprised the FM has put Scottish Independence on hold, when the way she has been acting has a lot of question marks, in my opinion. I hate listening to people saying where in a union when where not and that a section 30 order is the Gold standard when it isn’t and we need to work with England when we don’t, I am 100% behind the idea of the EU or closer ties with the Nordic countries and the quicker we have a hard border between England and Scotland the better is time to put the occupation to a end and to send the clearest message yet that Scotland is a country and it doesn’t belong to England and never will.
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Scottish Independence isn’t on hold – you had a reference in 2014. A one-in-a-generation referendum, no less. The Scottish people chose not to break up the United Kingdom.
We also had a referendum on our membership with the EU, 2 years later, and the majority of British people voters chose to leave. Scotland voted to remain in the EU, by and large, but it was a UK-wide vote, not a vote to decide which of the UK countries would leave and which would stay.
The result of the 2014 referendum was implemented immediately. Changes to the devolved powers of the Scottish council were implemented and the Scottish council received more money from England by was l way of the Barnett formula.
We’ve had to wait for 4 years for the result of the 2016 referendum to be honoured and we, the United Kingdom, will have left the EU at the end of the transition period, on 31st December 2020.
There’s nothing more to be said about your single-policy party, the SNP, apart from that it is shameful that the English-hating pro-independance cult don’t care how the SNP are running Scotland into the ground.
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Semi-literate and barely coherent. Another demented British Nationalist fanatic heard from.
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The two referendums are in opposition to each other and cannot be reconciled except by a third referendum. This situation would be instantly recognizable to the likes of RLS and Burns and many other equally erudite Scots: it is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. That third ref is not being granted…ergo…
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Stay aff the drink Phil dear chap!
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The poll he refers to actually has the Greens on 2%. 56% of Scotland now favours parties that support ( in theory at least) independence. If he cant get on with the day job of ensuring Scotland secedes from the UK then he should move aside.
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But 8% on the List which is pretty much standard, though up a bit from between elections. Few except their activists see much point in voting Green in the few constituencies they can be bothered to stand in. I would have done that last Holyrood election if they had been standing.
As for next one since they are more pro GRA than even the SNP they have lost my vote on either list. I may have to spoil my ballot by putting why.
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The slavers I have already seen about this poll are beyond belief. You would think the election is this Thursday rather than a year on Thursday. (For the record, the SNP blew a far stronger polling position less than 3 months out from the 2016 election)
But, sure, if the SNP keep up the appeasement strategy then it will take something extraordinary to show that there is another party more capable of managing the devolved decline of Scotland. But, as has been noted, that does not equate to growing support for Independence or even a plebiscite on the matter.
It hasn’t happened yet but the loss of swathes of pro-Indy votes has been factored into the SNP’s 2021 election campaign strategy. As things stand the SNP will win re-election on the back of voters who would never vote for Independence because they know, as things stand, the SNP will never prosecute it.
Party loyalists rejoice. Scotland loyalists despair. One Nation Nicola has taken the slip off the motorway to Independence and has found a nice, quiet back road to devolved decline and what she sees as immortality as Scotland’s longest serving FM. The unionists have noticed, it is only a matter of time before more significant numbers of nationalists notice too.
But there is always the possibility of events which may radically change the direction of travel.
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Have been saying for a long time that the SNP prefers the assortment of Unionists, British/English Nationalists and, particularly rUK voters who voted NO in 2014 to its own pro indy supporters. That, and the emphasis on self-ID (but not on recognizing the rights of trans people to be whomsoever they please) were the specific reasons that I have left the SNP after a lifetime’s support. A Scotland that is happy to be a province of a Greater England and a party that deems the right of a tiny minority of people to self-ID without any form of medical assessment and two jeopardise the mental and physical health of many youngsters who may not actually be trans, while simultaneously trampling the hard-fought and hard-won rights of 51-52% of the entire population because they have not foreseen the legal implications of their proposed GRA legislation, cannot be the same SNP that I joined. Everything and everyone has to develop and grow, but, to do so at the expense of half your support and by ditching your core raison d’être, invites questioning, at the very least.
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Yup, at this stage they are just a major scandal away from problems. Like Sturgeon being found to have misled parliament, sued by Alex Salmond and forced to stand down. Which are very possible things.
We can only hope Joanna Cherry can get elected to Holyrood next year and challenge Sturgeon. That might bring me back to voting for them again. I might have forgiven my MSP for voting to kill Margo’s Assisted Dying Bill by then or she might step down.
Though there’s always the hope that the Rev Stu will form the Wings Party so I can vote for them on the List at least.
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It matters naught if the SNP are soaring in the polls. They are a Union-centric party that is as currently led and with the present corrupt junta in government, never, ever, going to seriously challenge WM power.
It is an irrelevance in terms of this nation’s long struggle for liberty. The party is tightly controlled by a corrupt stalinist pro-Union career pol whose only concern is the accumulation and maintenance of her power to be use in the service of her self interest. She promotes to high office other self serving crypto-Unionists pols and has thoroughly seeded the apparatus with pathogenic woke-identity entryists.
It seems increasingly unlikely the Party can reform itself anytime soon, leaving Scotland and the electorate with no credible party of independence to vote for come next year’s election. Unless a major delousing of the party hierarchy and the eradication of woke pathogens from the apparatus can be achieved in short order, there is no alternative to the formation of an authentic party of independence to challenge the wee pretendy nationalists of the SNP at the next elections.
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with the yes groups putting up candidates in the list seats, hopefully that will bring enough independence supporters to the scottish government, to help the snp getting back to their rightful charge of independence .
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Independence, you were granted an election and reality kicked in !! You lost !! oil , salmon, whisky and tourism does not fund a government. You could fund a country on credit I suppose ! But Scotland has the highest borrowing in Europe !! That was before a pandemic, joining the EU again, dream on, all members have a vote and Spain don’t want anything to do with a Catalonia type state !! As for Scotlands NHS handling covid19 better than England, the population density is greater Glasgow is a hot spot just like London is !!! The whole UK is in deep shit and you continue to bleat about independence, Unbelievable !!! You need a dose of reality and a course of common sense.
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If it wasn’t for the part about CV19, I would have sworn that was Nicola herself.
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When we begin stopping trucks at the border, noting all the products that used to be made in Scotland and planning for the re-establishment of these activities on home ground, then there is considerable scope for improving self sufficiency. Also I wouldn’t underestimate the extent of capability and industriousness that currently exists outwith the simplistic categories you have referred to.
The day is coming where some people will have to square up to the new challenge or pack up the donkey and cart and head for the Brexit paradise.
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Scotland has the highest borrowing in Europe, you say?
Sorry mate, but the Scottish government isn’t allowed to borrow, and must survive on the pocket money England gives it.
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The only way to stop the rot and end up like the Labour Party in Scotland is to make it plain to the SNP that we want a commitment to moving immediately to independence after an election win, and we want it in black-and-white. If they cannot guarantee that, no vote. I never believed that I would ever not vote SNP, and I would find it very hard not to do so, but something needs to be done to jolt the party into moving towards independence again and out of this paralysis and stasis. If it still refuses to be persuaded and we get the same old excuses, then we will know that it is no longer the party for those of us who want independence, and we should move towards establishing something else. Time is not on our side, though, and I am finding it harder and harder to forgive these people who take our votes and take our support and spit on them. Pete Wishart should be ashamed. Many people in Scotland have lost their jobs, and he is in a better place to weather the storm than most. Have they no pride? Can they not see what the Unionists are doing every day as they wear us down with lies and obfuscations and blatant propaganda? Nicola Sturgeon has been an excellent FM for domestic Scotland, and I wish I could just go along with her on the constitutional issue and on GRA, but I can’t. We cannot stand still for another generation. I hope she understands that and rediscovers her radical nationalism. I fully understand that she is worn out in trying to run the Scottish administration and in trying to stand up to an increasingly threatening ( I think this is almost certainly the case) and belligerent, imperialist Westminster that sees Scotland as a satellite of itself, a colony in all but name, but we are silenced on Brexit and on, now, the pandemic. What price the ‘Union’ now? It does not exist. It is not the Union our forebears signed up to in 1707, and that was bad enough. What we have ended up with is infinitely worse than even the most despondent of the 1707 pro Scottish critics could possibly have envisaged.
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Wishart’s snide and petty comments aligned with Nicolson blocking anyone who has an alternative view on the GRA and Hate bill indicates to me that the SNP has not only been infiltrated by the woke brigade but has been totally commandeered by them and the woke commander
Wishart likes to CROW about the SNP lead in the polls but as we all know that lead can disappear in a heartbeat once people are enlightened to the effects these reviled bills will have on our womenfolk , our Mothers , our Aunts , our Sisters , our Wifes , our Grandmothers , our Daughters , and our Granddaughters , but throw them ALL under a bus to satisfy 0.01% of the population just to appear the most progressive of progressives
Wishart alongside others in the party like to THINK that the SNP’S current standing in the polls is down to their policies , where is the proof of that , I would disagree , I think the lead is due to the total clusterfuck bozo the clown and his circus is making of the pandemic , and let’s face it NS is just following WM but presenting it with more empathy and gravitas
I BEG and PLEAD to the SNP membership , if you believe in an independent Scotland PLEASE take back your party , even if it means FORCING NS to stand down and replacing her with Joanna Cherry and force her to take the union to the ICJ
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There are genetically modified seeds being planted here…Beware harvest time.
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As a woman, my disgust with the SNPs anti- woman and anti-science stance with regards to GRA reform and the new “Hate” Bill is growing by the day.
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I feel the same. I am not anti trans – far from it – and I am not anti English or even anti Unionist Scots in the sense of hating them – far from it – but it is no use if the SNP, as Mr Wishart says, is doing what the people of Scotland like either, falling short of independence, because that presupposes that those of us who want independence very soon, and those of us who do not support some of the least well-thought out proposed legislation ever for the legal minefield it will bring and the trampling of women’s human and civil rights, are somehow deficient in comprehension while Unionist NO voters of all stripes are in the right. What kind of Independence Party is that? The Unionist NO voters of all stripes are opposed to independence. The party should, long since, have designated a special unit of expert constitutional people, including at least one crack constitutional lawyer, to research the ways to independence, and to select the most viable. That the party did not do that says a great deal. It transpire that a crowd funding effort will be required by the YES movement and individuals to set up such a unity ASAP. So long as we are willing to go on voting for a castrated SNP that can no longer do the business, or willing to do the business because out does not wish to offend people – indeed, it seems to want to court them at the expense of its membership – who are diametrically opposed to its core reason for existing. It’s that old Scottish malaise of dichotomy within the bodies politic, social and economic – trying to go in two directions at once, being in two minds about the two directions and eventually disappearing up our own, singular ring of no confidence.
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As a man I’m absolutely with you. Ditto for the even more pro GRA Greens. I used to give my List Vote to the Greens, no more.
I doubt Patrick is listening any more than Nicola is.
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I wonder how many of the current SNP leadership and their cabal have financial interests based in England that will benefit from brexit, and the soon to be privatized NHS, among other potential avenues for personal profit, safely hidden away in the brexit enabled twilight zone that is British tax evasion.
Much as many would tout the current battle over the pursuit of independence as a pure and politically ideological one of method, i’m far more cynical, and would look at the financials of particular SNP politicians to assess what may be an altogether different agenda, dependent on self gain, rather than the vibrant, compassionate and distinctly Scottish civic nationalism Alex Salmond and others shaped and molded over decades, before the current leadership grasped the reins.
One thing stands out now, more than ever. The gulf between the SNP leadership, and the courageous souls who are relentlessly passionate and determined to see our country regain its independence has never been wider.
One more thing. Stalin and successive soviet leaders seeded much of Eastern Europe with russians to enable a ‘viable’ pretense for invasion, presented as defending those brave patriots from the barbaric locals whenever it was deemed neccessary.
They weren’t the first. The English Establishment, through their artificial construct known as Great Britain, did the same in all the countries they invaded during the time of their brutal empire. And Scotland, like many other countries, suffers the consequence of that colonial intent, to this day.
It’s only when we seize control of our media, polling, and levers of national ownership inherent in an independent nation, will we overcome the EE’s diseased and parasitical colonial device, and forge our own path.
As Putin is still using Stalin’s vehicle for control, so Johnson and his cult are still wielding that of the EE’s barbaric legacy. We will never get a section 30, nor any other mutual document or intent that enables a Scottish decision, by Scots, for Scots.
We must Dissolve the Union as soon as possible, or face further decades of colonial oppression, but it will not happen while the current SNP leadership has the reins.
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