From time to time during the day, I receive emails highlighting around half a dozen Twitter posts. I find this quite useful as it very often brings to my attention items that I would otherwise be aware of. Items that are worthy of upticking or retweeting or which warrant a response. It’s not important why, but the email also shows me Tweets from people who have blocked me. Which is occasionally interesting and rather less often thought-provoking. The Tweet shown in image below caught my attention, not because it is interesting in itself, but because it so nicely illustrates an unfortunate attitude that is rife within the independence movement.
I suspect many of my readers will sympathise with the tone of this comment. I know I share the anger and resentment that radiates from it. What it says is true. But is it something that needs to be said? Or, is it something that needs to be said quite as often? Because if you are following a few thousand independence supporters you are bound to encounter any number of such comments day in and day out. I’m not arguing with the statement made. I’m personally acquainted with the attitude evinced. I just wonder if that attitude is ‘unhelpful’ and why the statement is still being made.
The anger and resentment that independence supporters feel towards Nicola Sturgeon is perfectly understandable. It might even be said to be healthy, in that it shows awareness of a political reality about which far too many are in denial. But that attitude becomes unhealthy when it is allowed to be like a stake driven into a point in the past to which the person expressing the attitude is tethered. Nicola Sturgeon is the past. Although her failed approach to the constitutional issue persists with Humza Yousaf, she herself has ceased to be a significant figure in the struggle to restore Scotland’s rightful status. She is the last thing. We need to move on to the next thing.
To some extent, those tethered to Nicola Sturgeon by either intellectually crippling resentment or intellectually crippling devotion have a ready excuse for not moving on to the next thing. Until recently, there was no next thing. There were lots of things declaring themselves to be the next thing. But none of them could withstand scrutiny. It’s not easy to move on when there is no obvious place to go. Or when what is on offer is just too similar to what you want to leave behind to be considered a viable option. When a credible candidate for the next thing emerges, it becomes easier to cut that tether.
The #StirlingDirective is surely the most promising candidate for next thing that we’ve had since 2014. As far as I am concerned, it is the next thing. It is the thing that might overcome the inertia and set Scotland’s cause in motion once more. It is the thing that should be the hot topic on social media. Constantly revisiting the past for any purpose other than to seek its lessons is futile.
The next thing is right in front of you. To discover it, you need only turn your face away from the past and set your mind on the future. It’s where we’re going that matters most, regardless of where we’ve been.
Peter A Bell 
The Gold Standard/Section 30/Legally British is a dead end. We have known for some time that it died on 18th September 2014. This was given formal certification on 23rd November 2022 by the UK Supreme Court.
Sturgeon has been a disaster for Scotland’s Cause. The cul de sacs, the hubristic marches up the hill before tumbling down with tales between legs, the missed opportunities and the wasted mandates have all proved that. Only those that are willfully blind will not acknowledge that.
They can’t be helped. In fact, they don’t wish to be helped. So the rest of us have to move on if we are to keep the flame lit. Let karma deal with Sturgeon.
We need something positive yet realistic. Problematic of course but plausible.
The Stirling Directive, Salvo/Liberation and Scottish Sovereignty Research Group provide a different dimension and a different approach.
Let’s use this to focus on tangibly progressing towards our objective.
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Peter I don’t know if you’ve ever been the victim of a confidence trickster I know I have and know how it feels when the penny finally drops that you’ve been conned. Well that’s how people like me feel when the penny finally dropped for them regarding Nicola Sturgeon , you feel rage, frustration embarrassment because you trusted this person and it doesn’t go away easy, and it doesn’t make it any easier when you hear fellow victims who haven’t caught on to her yet still praising her
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I know that feeling very well. But I refuse to be tethered to the past by it.
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Quite right Peter!
I don’t hate, as hate is self destructive.
I despise them for what they have done.
Especially , without an honest explanation.
That’s the worst of it.
They expect to walk away as if life continues on , as if they can continue on, in elevated positions.
When, in fact, they should be out , stood down , disgraced, shown up for the traitorous shysters that they are ; not forgetting those that jumped beforehand; those that were also complicit in this long drawn out charade.
How weak we have become as societies, that do not tar and feather traitorous shysters anymore.
I will be happy to see them fall.
🐼🐼🏴🏴
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You´re right , Peter . It´s now time to move on and away from the dismal Sturgeon Era . It would help if she just fucked-off out of Scotland – and our awareness – to whatever really , really , REALLY important position she covets and which will be her reward for 8+ years of holding Scotland on the Union´s leash . Fuck her , she´s yesterday´s news .
Operation Branchform looks increasingly likely to result in Operation Whitewash ; if so , whilst many ( myself included ) will feel justice ( natural/legal ) will have been ill-served , we may have some consolation in finally seeing the disastrous Sturgeon/Murrell duo consigned to the sub- section of History named ” Mistakes Made & Lessons Learned ” . Though the latter part is always debatable . As we´re currently witnessing .
The Stirling Directive is – should be – where our present and future energies are focussed .
” The past is a foreign country ” . We´re doing things differently now
WordPress.com / Gravatar.com credentials can be used.
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Hopefully she doesn’t move on to a position of influence in the UN as is often postulated. The UK would promote that not wanting her baleful influence to be wasted in future.
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Now that would be dynamite on the bonfire, and it could lead to an even bigger eruption in fury amongst nationalists.
There was whispers on the point of her resignation that she wanted to work for the UN. So – if by some freaky chance (though I can’t see it happening …now that her name is tarnished with scandal) – but if it did – then a new row would surely – SURELY – erupt.
To work for the UN as an ambassador (because that is what Nicola was aiming to be) means you have to work with the British State through the Foreign Office. There is no danger that the UK is going to have a British National wandering through the UN as an ambassador and speaking without their consent or control. You have to be approved by the British State to be a ‘UK ambassador’ at the UN. Doesn’t matter who she works for in the UN, but she would need overall UK approval.
So how the f*** will that sit with nationalists? That the former FM who sought independence and aimed to break up the UK …now wants to be a representative under the approval of the very nation that she sought to shatter?
Hell, even The Herald noted this flaw when the idea was first mooted
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23378367.foreign-diplomats-eye-nicola-sturgeon-role-world-stage/
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From the SNP website:
“Keir Starmer’s defence of Tory two-child limit is unforgivable, SNP MPs will work to scrap it”
It’s this type of stupid headline that is yet another reason for the decline in vote for the SNP. There may well be 2 people who believe it, but of the other 2,759,059 voters likely to vote in 2024, absolutely none will.
Working to do something means some chance of achieving it. I for instance am working towards being a millionaire by doing the occasional lucky dip on the lottery – and I have far more chance of winning than the SNP do of changing policy at Westminster.
It’s so stupid, just like whoever wrote it expecting people would support the SNP because of it.
And what about some article there about: “SNP MPs working to scrap the Union”? Nope, none.
This Friday rant was brought to you by yes indyref2, though I should really change my surname by deed poll.
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sturgeon is not in the past she is still working humza. the SNP need westminster money they have no intention going for independence any time
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