I cannot but endorse Neale Hanvey’s sentiments expressed in an article for Wings Over Scotland. He effectively expresses the disappointment, frustration, anger and – dare I say it? – hurt engendered by the betrayal we have endured at the hands of a few people in the upper echelons of the SNP.
I think it’s important to bear in mind that there are culprits and perpetrators in all of this. It would not be wise under the circumstances to name names. But there are people with names behind the betrayal. And it might be a serious mistake to pin their treachery on the entire party.
The SNP is not the enemy of Scotland’s cause. The party is rightfully the property of its members. We cannot say that those members are guilty of betraying Scotland’s cause. (Although the worst of the party loyalists might be charged with aiding and abetting.) If the membership is guilty of anything it is the neglect and misplaced trust that allowed the party to be effectively hijacked by a relatively small clique at the top. That means a great many of us are culpable – myself included. We didn’t do it. But we sure as hell allowed it to be done.
I think it’s important to remember this because I am certain that Scotland’s cause still needs the SNP. Not the SNP of Nicola Sturgeon’s era. But the SNP of old. To be more precise, we need the Scottish Government. There is surely no way that Scotland’s independence can be restored without the Scottish Parliament. And only the Scottish Government is able to initiate the process by which the Union is ended and independence is restored. We cannot escape the fact that the SNP is the party of government and will be for the next three to eight years. A period which includes the next UK general election – which will see a massive ramping up of British Nationalism in all the parties that might form or be a part of the next UK government.
Action is needed now. Only the SNP/Scottish Government acting through the Scottish Parliament can give political effect to the independence movement. It logically follows, therefore, that all our energies should be focused on persuading/forcing the SNP/Scottish Government to act.
I know what many (most?) of you are saying right about this point. But it is not about what the SNP is or has been made over the last eight years. It is about what the independence movement is and whether we have the will to bring all our combined strength to bear on the politicians we’re stuck with whether we like it or not.
Nobody has yet explained to me what, in purely practical terms, Alba Party can do. If Alba had a credible plan for ending the Union and restoring independence, I’d have joined before now. If Alba even looked as if it was working towards a credible plan, I would at least consider joining. But I’ve seen nothing to persuade me that Alba would do anything effective even if it could. And, of course, it can’t.
Alba isn’t even putting pressure on the SNP/Scottish Government to act. If Alex Salmond and his colleagues were to propose a radical, assertive plan to TAKE our independence, that would definitely put pressure on the SNP/Scottish Government. Which is all Alba can do until the next Holyrood election. Which, allow me to remind you, will not be until AFTER the fateful UK general election. By the time of the next Scottish Parliament, the new British government will have been in place for around eighteen months. Plenty of time to implement whatever measures to ‘preserve the Union’ were promised during the election campaign.
The time to strike is now. It is appalling that elements of the SNP leadership have so egregiously betrayed the party, the cause, the nation and the people of Scotland at this critical juncture. But so long as the SNP is the party of government, Scotland’s cause needs it. So we better set about restoring it to what it once was, and damned quick. The BritNat juggernaut is rolling. We must act before our democracy in crushed beneath the behemoth of British imperialism.
If you find these articles interesting please consider a small donation to help support this site and my other activities on behalf of Scotland’s cause.
Peter A Bell 
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No disagreement with what you wrote but perhaps it’s worth noting that several people on Wings and elsewhere have said that while they won’t vote for the SNP, they have no real intention of voting for anyone else either. That would seem to indicate of a wider political breakdown triggered by disillusionment with the goings on in the SNP hierarchy. Even if the SNP membership can wrest control of the party from the leadership, the once bitten, twice shy reaction from former voters might have a greater effect on it’s fortunes.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Aye. There’s one helluva lot of ground to be made up in a very short time. Which is why the party should be ridding itself of the rotten apples with some haste.
LikeLiked by 3 people
“the party should be ridding itself of the rotten apples with some haste”.
But it’s not going to, is it, Peter?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Certainly not if everybody has already decided it’s not going to happen. Make up your mind about what is going to happen before it happens and you’ll make it happen just so you can be right. Decide what you WANT to happen and focus on that.
LikeLike
‘Persuading/ forcing the Scottish government to act.’
Is the SNP government persuadable? If not, how do we force them?
LikeLiked by 5 people
In democracies, all governments are persuadable. They are being persuaded all the time. The trouble is that it’s rarely ‘ordinary’ people who are doing the persuading. It’s those who can afford professional lobbyists. Those with clout. Those with economic power. The only way the ‘ordinary’ people can persuade the or force the government is by combining.
Governments and political parties are never more persuadable ─ or susceptible to being forced ─ than when there is an election on, or in the offing. They are at their least persuadable during the first third of a term in office. Which is why it was such a tragedy that the Yes movement failed to seize on the opportunity offered by the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. Everybody ─ or the vast majority ─ in the Yes movement figured they had better things to do than persuade/force the SNP to commit to a #ManifestoForIndependence.
What would have been relatively easy in late 2020 or early 2021 is now considerably more difficult. But it still has to be done. Because the SNP is still the party of government. Again, however, a very large part of the Yes movement doesn’t even want to try. They’re like people dying of thirst refusing water because the cup is a bit dirty. Or they don’t like the colour.
LikeLike
“The SNP is not the enemy of Scotland’s cause. The party is rightfully the property of its members. We cannot say that those members are guilty of betraying Scotland’s cause.”
Then how do explain a measly 11.1% of them voting for the ONLY leadership candidate Ash Regan, with a viable independence plan?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Ash has to take a lot of the blame herself. She needed the sharpest, strongest campaign imaginable to counter the party hierarchy’s backing for the continuity candidate(s). What she had was not that. Her supporters can blame the SNP bosses and the media and the SNP membership. But the only thing Ash Regan had any control over was her own campaign.
She didn’t have a “viable independence plan”. She talked differently from the others on the subject of the constitutional issue and she had the makings of some interesting ideas. But she wasn’t nearly bold enough. Or coherent enough. It doesn’t matter that she was trying to explain her thinking. Was it Ronald Regan who quipped that if you’re explaining, you’re losing? What I take this to mean is that if you’re campaign message isn’t simple and clear enough to be immediately understood by the least intellectually acute voter, then it was not a winning message.
But probably Ash Regan’s biggest strategic error was being in it to win it. She should not have tried to conduct a campaign that might win the kind of contest that was being conducted. Either you are going to offer radical ideas or you’re going to play by the rules of established power. You can’t do both. Ash Regan tried to do both. And she ended up coming across as vague and confused.
The contest Ash Regan should have been fighting was not the one to be the leader of the SNP or the one to be First Minister. The contest she should have been looking to win was the one to decide who was the true leader of the Yes movement.
But nobody listens to me.
LikeLike
“Ash has to take a lot of the blame herself. She needed the sharpest, strongest campaign imaginable to counter the party hierarchy’s backing for the continuity candidate(s). What she had was not that.”
C’mon Peter, you don’t actually believe that, Ash Regan and her team did what they could under the unusual circumstances, the media and the SNP did their best to play it out as a two horse race, I thought Regan did remarkably well considering this.
“She didn’t have a “viable independence plan”. She talked differently from the others on the subject of the constitutional issue and she had the makings of some interesting ideas. But she wasn’t nearly bold enough.”
Now you’re taking the piss Peter, Regan had/has a perfectly viable indy plan which she explained over and over at the hustings the SNP, Forbes, Yousaf and the Britnats and their media tried their hardest to rubbish the plan but they couldn’t which make all the more galling that the SNP membership voted for a candidate with NO indy plan.
11.1% of the membership voted for the only candidate who had a good plan to exit this union, what does that say about the SNP membership? it tells me they don’t want independence.
Bar one or wo half-decent MSPs and MPs the SNP isn’t interested in Scottish independence, the SNP brand and it credibility have been damaged beyond prepare.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I take more convincing than you do. Or to put it another way, you don’t take much convincing.
LikeLike
It appears the SNP membership agreed with you, and that’s why we’re going nowhere anytime soon.
LikeLike
The failure to convince belongs to the one who is trying to convince, not the unconvinced. The unconvinced are ‘guilty’ of nothing more than sensible scepticism.
LikeLike
Not unconvinced Peter, more like not interested in achieving Scottish independence.
LikeLike
“The contest Ash Regan should have been fighting was not the one to be the leader of the SNP or the one to be First Minister. The contest she should have been looking to win was the one to decide who was the true leader of the Yes movement.”
On the above Peter.
You clearly weren’t paying attention, if Regan had won, she would’ve saved the SNP and kept the indy cause on track, if that’s not acting like a YES leader I don’t know what is.
LikeLike
Ash Regan was NEVER going to win. That’s fantasy politics again. Her big opportunity was not the party leadership and FM, but the de facto leadership of the Yes movement. That might well be a more important role. But she just didn’t go for it. And I speak as someone who supported her throughout the campaign, even when I knew she was getting it wrong.
LikeLike
“Ash Regan was NEVER going to win”
Ipso facto, Peter, the membership and the SNP hierarchy don’t want Scottish independence, and there are far too many gatekeepers within the SNP to keep on supporting the party, the last eight years has proven that, and with the appointment of Yousaf its business as usual.
Regan didn’t get it wrong, the membership did, and it will be Scots that pays the price for it.
LikeLike
Agreed, only that the proportion of the claimed membership voting for AR is even less than that, at 7.75% according to the result published by the SNP (see https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.snp.org/uploads/2023/03/SNP-Leadership-Election-RESULT.pdf)
LikeLike
The controlling SNP cabal – and yes they are still just about in control – is without doubt the enemy of Scotland’s cause, as are the body of remaining members who do not give a stuff about independence. Those members may now even be the majority of the membership, would be good to see some numbers. I have no idea how the SNP can be reinstated as “vital to Scotland’s cause” from its current death-spiral condition, or how the “SNP-Continuing” can ever be trusted by Scotland’s electorate. I’d like to see a plan from anyone detailing how this can happen.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The SNP doesn’t have to be “reinstated”. So long as it is the party of government it IS “vital to Scotland’s cause”. It can’t help but be crucial to the cause because it is the party of government. What might happen later is irrelevant to what IS at this time. The SNP is the party of government. You can repeat until he rocks melt in the sun that this need not always be the case. It remains true now. And now is what matters. It is all that matters as far as the constitutional issue goes. Now, the fact is that the SNP is the party of government. A lot of people seem to be finding this fact rather slippery. It keeps escaping their grasp.
As to what the SNP might be in the future, that is of very little interest. It doesn’t affect now. And now is what we have to focus on. There’s a strange, contorted kind of logic that says because the ‘party of independence’ has been useless for the past eight years and might cease to be the party of government some time in the next eighty or ninety years, we can just disregard the fact that it is the party of government now. Even when someone acknowledges that the SNP is the party of government and that as such it is “vital to Scotland’s cause”, as often as not they will then proceed as if the SNP can safely be discounted. The psychology of it is fascinating. I suspect it relates to the drift away from politics as a contest of ideas towards a politics of identity. But that’s for another time.
I wouldn’t write-off the SNP as a political force either. Not just yet. These things can happen ‘overnight’. But they can also be glacially slow. As things stand, the party is likely to have a bit of a setback in the next UK general election in autumn 2024 (?). But it is still likely to be the party of government after the 2026 Scottish general election. It has time to recover. Whether it has the ideas and the strategy is another matters.
As I say, it is of little interest. What matters is now. NOW, the SNP is the party of government and as such cannot be anything other than “vital to Scotland’s cause”. Which won’t stop some in the Yes movement abandoning it as if it didn’t matter. We go round in the circles created by self-realising conclusions.
LikeLike
I disagree Peter, as you’ll have realised by now. The SNP has just elected a leader who, whatever else you might say about him, is by his own shameful admission somewhat less than dedicated to the cause of independence. Thus the SNP, right now, in the present, today, not in the future, is a block, an impediment to Scotland’s cause, and vital only to the denial and frustration of that cause. Only in that negative sense is it vital, surely you must see that ?
LikeLiked by 3 people
The SNP is the party of government. Independence will not be restored without the active participation of the Scottish Government. The SNP is the party of government. Independence will not be restored without the active participation of the SNP.
But that is mere truth, fact and impeccable logic. None of which counts for anything. Only fabrication, faith and fantasy matter.
LikeLike
“To be more precise, we need the Scottish Government.”
But the present ‘Scottish Government’ is a colonial administration, Peter. It is little more than a Westminster spending department rin by a British civil service, loyal (SNP) Meenisters o the Croun an a plethora of unionist institutions. A colonial administration and its institutions always protects the interest of the colonial power which explains why we are still not free despite the election of several ‘nationalist’ majorities. It might as well be called an ‘Executive’ for all the good it does.
LikeLiked by 4 people
What it is is less important than what it could be. The question we should be asking is why a parliament with the democratic legitimacy of Holyrood is limited to being “a Westminster spending department”. The Scottish Parliament’s democratic legitimacy, derived from the sovereign people of Scotland, amply qualifies it to be a full national parliament in the way this is generally understood. So, why isn’t it?
It isn’t a full national parliament on because we haven’t made it a full national parliament. It’s not difficult. We only have to say this that once was no more than “a Westminster spending department” is this day and henceforth the sole parliament of the nation of Scotland with all the competencies this implies. Of course, it’s not quite that simple in practice. But it’s not massively, dauntingly more difficult.
Remove the Union and what s the Scottish Parliament? Is it still just “a Westminster spending department”? No! it is immediately transformed into a full national parliament. It IS a full national parliament. It’s just prevented as acting as such by the Union. Just as the people of Scotland are sovereign but are prevented from acting as a sovereign people by the Union.
Ending the Union is not only the first priority of Scotland’s independence movement, it is the ONLY priority. We should be focused on nothing else. And we should be ensuring our government shares that focus.
LikeLiked by 2 people
That is of course correct, if a tad circular with the SNP as the key component of Holyrood, with the intention only of perpetuating the union rather than ending it. The Government is not the Parliament however, other governments are available and need to be elected on the basis of ending the union and empowering the parliament. The current SNP will never be that “other government”.
LikeLiked by 2 people
So we wait. Just like we’ve been waiting. What is the difference between Alba waiting and SNP waiting?
LikeLike
Not sure what this has got to do with Alba, but the major difference between the parties is that Alba actually wants independence, nuSNP patently does not. With the obstacle of the SNP removed from the route (any route) to independence then we , pro independence parties and the movement, can actually do positive stuff knowing that at least one road block is no longer there.
LikeLike
So, logic plays no part in your thinking. The SNP IS the party of government. You can’t just wish away such facts. It has to do with Alba because we were discussing what Alba’s plan for independence might be, should it turn out to actually have one. It is rather characteristic of Alba devotees that the only part of this ‘plan’ you can think of off the top of your head is wishing away the SNP.
Simply being a pro-independence party isn’t enough. The SNP has proved that. Restoration of independence is still in the party’s constitution. So, it is just idiotic to say that it is not a pro-independence party. Ask any of its remaining members. The fact that the leadership has failed to abide by the SNP’s constitution doesn’t alter the constitution. It alters the leadership. It changes the leadership into a failed leadership. That is all.
All I am saying is that, if we deal with the situation on an entirely dispassionate, rational level, repairing the SNP has to be the best option regardless of how difficult it may be. And we don’t even know that it would be so very difficult. Because we’ve never even tried. Repairing the SNP has to be the best option because all other options require that we wait until the starting point is different. We wait until the SNP is no longer the party of government. That isn’t happening in the next three years and probably not in the next eight.
So, stripped of the distracting rhetoric, Alba’s ‘Plan’ is to wait. Wait for maybe eight years, maybe even more. Nobody can say. Wait. Wait Wait. I can get that from Yousaf. And, just like Yousaf, Alba doesn’t say exactly what it will do when the waiting eventually stops. If it ever stops. So why should I, as an ordinary pro-independence voter, imagine I’d be better off with Alba in power?
We both know, I think, that the game-changer here is the #ManifestoForIndependence. If Alba wants to stand out from the SNP and look like a viable alternative to those who haven’t abandoned all the protections of scepticism, it will have to differentiate itself from the SNP. It will need a distinctive position on the constitutional issue. It will need to be offering a fresh approach to restoring Scotland’s independence.
What am I told when I say this? WAIT! Wait and see! WAIT! Something will turn up if you just WAIT! Take your pick from this big bag of excuses we have for asking you to WAIT!
I am sick of waiting. I am sick of being told I must wait. But most of all, I know we can’t afford to wait.
LikeLike
No thank you.
The Party is riddled with special advisors, cliques and cults. That is why 50% of the members left. The Sturgeon Ponzi scheme is rife….look at Tartan week for example.
We were not all to blame. Angus Robertson removing Party Democracy at a quiet lunchtime session or filling the NEC with unelected affiliates was a carefully executed plot before the members had time to organise.
The layers of engineered incompetence are fixed.
You need to get out more. The Public will not be voting for them. Sadly many of them think the Greens are the answer….I dread that pit.
Your solution is the same as Lesley Riddoch….The SNP is our only hope. If that is correct then the Union will continue and more than 8 years will have been wasted.
You pursue your Stonewall devolution Party dream. I will chase true Independence.
LikeLike
The SNP is the party of government. Independence will not be restored without the active participation of the Scottish Government. The SNP is the party of government. Independence will not be restored without the active participation of the SNP.
But that is mere truth, fact and impeccable logic. None of which counts for anything. Only fabrication, faith and fantasy matter.
LikeLike
Sorry Peter, but I think you are quite wrong. Yes, I think it is very likely, and most certainly preferable, that independence is restored with the active participation of the Scottish Government, and it is also true that the SNP are the party of government FOR NOW.
The problem is that the SNP are mortally wounded. Even if Kate or Ash had been elected leader I think this would still have been the case. The rot is too deep and much of it is still in there like a cancer, fighting and growing to retake control. It’s too far advanced to be cut out, nothing remains but to put the poor creature out of its misery. This could take years, it could take decades, but it must be done. I’m sorry that you can’t see that.
Here’s some anecdotal evidence. I’m a lifelong SNP voter and one time party member. I left a few years ago when it became apparent to me that all was not well in the Kingdom of Denmark. I’ll be voting Alba if I can. I will never vote SNP again, I would rather spoil my ballot. My partner is almost but not quite so politically engaged as myself, but has voted SNP for the last 15 years or so, and has attended marches and rallies. She will never vote SNP again, because of their deal with the Greens. She says she might vote Labour from now on. She knows a lot of people. Everyone (literally everyone) she knows who previously voted SNP are saying that they don’t know what to do or who to vote for now.
I know it would be lovely if the SNP magically turned themselves around and became that party of a decade ago, everyone forgave them and trusted them again to lead us to independence, and all their current woes suddenly disappeared but I’m afraid that’s simply not going to happen. They will continue to be infiltrated by… the wrong people…, and will be mired in legal difficulties for years to come, their reputation forever tarnished.
Sometimes you just have to lance the boil.
LikeLike
You’re another one who imagines we have unlimited time. That’s the complacency that will put paid to any chance of restoring Scotland’s independence.
LikeLike
It would take less time than it’ll take to rehabilitate the SNP, that’s for sure.
Complacent I most certainly am not. Quite the reverse.
LikeLike
What would take less time. Fucking orphan pronouns! And you have not the vaguest idea how long it would take to rehabilitate the SNP. Because it has never even been tried. Like you, most people in the Yes movement apart from the party loyalists didn’t even consider doing the hard stuff. It was easier just to give up, walk away, then find someone who could convince them that they were still doing something for Scotland’s cause. Although they could never say exactly what.
And still the FACT remains despite all your wishful thinking, the SNP is the party of government and for safety we should assume it will be for the next eight years.
But that’s me being realistic again. I know how that irks the fantasists.
LikeLike
“What would take less time. Fucking orphan pronouns!”
If you want to play grammar pedants, you missed out a question mark.
“And you have not the vaguest idea how long it would take to rehabilitate the SNP. Because it has never even been tried. ”
Umm, what is it that you are suggesting we do? Exactly. Can it be done in eight years? Should it? You have no idea.
“It was easier just to give up, walk away, then find someone who could convince them that they were still doing something for Scotland’s cause. Although they could never say exactly what.”
What have the SNP done for Scotland’s cause over the last eight years? Yeah, exactly. Sweet fuck all.
“And still the FACT remains despite all your wishful thinking, the SNP is the party of government and for safety we should assume it will be for the next eight years.”
Oh I wouldn’t be entirely sure about that.
“But that’s me being realistic again. I know how that irks the fantasists.”
Sure, if you say so.
LikeLike
Are you even aware that you totally failed to address any point. Time-waster!
LikeLike
I’m sure the membership number lies, the resignations, the unaudited woven-tapestry accounts, the police, and the trophy campervan will all blow over in half a decade. In the meantime there is going to be GRR3, shipyard+noferries0.5billion, and Lorna Slater (holy underpants) telling us that we can’t put glass in the recycling bin outside and have to drive it to a machine at a Tesco megabarn in order to queue for 20p in the rain, if it works. Oh, and the local council closing 6 librarys and 2 swimming pools. Oh, and if you go to A&E, or call an ambulance, bring camping gear and hope the ambulance doesn’t run aground in an enormous pothole. Oh, and if you need a cateract operation, forget about it unless you have £3000 per-eye handy.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tom Gordon has some competition when it comes to portraying Scotland as a total hell-hole, it seems.
LikeLike
Lorna Slater will be representing the Scottish government a lot on TV over the next 12 months. That’s someone who is obviously a gibbering baloonheid and makes the smoke-alarm woman look like a genius (if anyone can remember that dimwitted scandal – hard to keep up with them and that one was a whole year ago).
LikeLike
In view of today’s news about the arrest of the SNP treasurer, the prospect of the SNP imploding, or exploding, has markedly increased. There seems to be the distinct possibility of further bad news for the SNP.
What is the plan B if they go under?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Define “go under”. None of what you mention is likely to bring down the government.
LikeLike
In the worst case scenario (but a distinct possibility) the SNP go bankrupt, and cease to exist as a political party, whilst in addition criminal charges are brought againt senior SNP office holders An attempt may be made to create a new party under a different name, but several (many?) MSP’s leave.
A no confidence vote is bound to succeed. Result: The SNP have gone under.
This is not a fanciful scenario. It seems more likely than not. But even if it is only a possibility, there needs to be a plan B just in case.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It is a very fanciful scenario. For a start, none of what you are talking about can happen overnight. Party managers being found guilty of some offence gives the government presentational problems, but no more than that. Even if MSPs are found to have acted criminally, that does not, in itself stop them being an MSP. Even if they are jailed, they don’t stop being an MSP. Unless they’re jailed for over a year. Otherwise, they get their pay docked by 90% while enjoying King Charles’s hospitality.
Bankruptcy is unlikely to happen precisely because it could be massively disruptive. There are always ways around bankruptcy. And it is by no means certain a no confidence vote would succeed.
But the time factor is probably the clincher. Unless all the arresting and charging and trying and appealing and reviewing is done at a pace that is unheard of, all this is taking us into and beyond the next UK general election. Ay which point, it pretty much ceases to matter what happens with the SNP.
My advice would be to be careful what you wish for. If the SNP is brought low in the way you are drooling over, what happens next is unlikely to be good news for Scotland or the Yes movement. The fantasist just don’t appreciate the fact that while the SNP has not fulfilled its primary purpose (how’s that for understatement!) it is still essential for its secondary purpose ─ the barrier between us and the British parties.
Pardon my pragmatism. I know some people find it hard to digest.
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is another possible outcome, or perhaps ‘fanciful scenario’ albeit which Westminster has already debated for its other ‘wayward’ territories. Where there is ‘alleged corruption and mismanagement’ in a ‘dependent’ territory, the ‘administrative power’ (i.e. mother country) may consider imposing direct rule, including perhaps dissolution of any local assembly (and hence no elections to it) for a period of time:
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9538/
LikeLiked by 1 person
I believe I mentioned this somewhere when discussing the potential consequences of ‘destroying’ the SNP. It’s not such a “fanciful” scenario. Although it is not one that would have occurred to anyone until the last few weeks. Personally, I don’t believe the British will go down the route you outline. But only because they have a better and more permanent way of imposing direct rule.
To a considerable extent, it all depends on the scheduling of the next UK election. If it was declared now (fanciful scenario), the British state would be unable to prevent the ‘alleged corruption and mismanagement’ becoming a major campaign issue – and not only in Scotland. Protecting the Union will itself be a big part of that election campaign; it being something the British media can really get its teeth into having sharoened them on its anti-EU campaign. But if, as expected, the election is not held until autumn 2024, the ‘alleged corruption and mismanagement’ will have dropped off the rolling news sufficiently for the British state to damp down demands to intervene directly in this way by proposing a better way. A permanent way. A Spanish-style constitution that effectively makes it illegal to campaign for independence.
Even if the measures that arise from the frenzy of the election campaign fall short of that ‘final solution’, the British will still be looking for ways to rein in the Scottish Parliament. They have already started the process of eroding the Parliament’s powers and undermining it legitimacy. There is no reason why they shouldn’t just continue with that course of action until all meaningful political power in Scotland is wielded by Alister “Union” Jack and the UK Government in Scotland. Who will stop them? It’s a gradual process so most people won’t even notice. If they do notice, they won’t care. If they care they’ll moan like fuck on social media. Nobody will take effective action. There will be no mass action. The people will not be taking to the streets. If that was going to happen, it would have happened by now.
Tens of thousands of people will take to Scotland’s streets to protest against imperialist invasions elsewhere. Barely a whimper will be heard as the British imperialist complete their annexation of their norther territories.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So no plan B then.
The pragmatic solution is to persuade/force the SNP to do the right thing.
I’ll watch with interest how that works out.
LikeLiked by 2 people