Consider this thought that occurred to me in the shower. The Scottish Government is collapsed in the way many seem to want, necessitating an extraordinary Scottish general election. But there is already a UK general election slated for this year. The British government takes the view that a clash of elections is unacceptable. But Scotland cannot be left without a functioning government.
The British government decides that it has ‘no choice’ but to ‘temporarily suspend’ the Scottish Parliament and impose direct rule via the UK Government in Scotland. Queen Elizabeth House takes over all the functions of government in Scotland.
Temporarily?
Peter A Bell 
Now you’ve done it! If they weren’t thinking about it before they will now.
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Aye! I’ll get the blame, I suppose! Whit kin ye dae?
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I’m a strong advocate of singing in the shower, keeps me out of trouble
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“The British government decides that it has ‘no choice’ but to ‘temporarily suspend’ the Scottish Parliament and impose direct rule via the UK Government in Scotland.”
And where, exactly, does it say in the Scotland Act that the UK Government has the power to do that even for a scheduled General Election let alone an Extraordianry General Election?
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/46/notes/division/3/4
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Its quite simple.
The English Govt. can do whatever the hell it wants to!
That said, the only reason they can do what they want to Scotland, is the politicians here allow them!!
SNP has been an abysmal failure as far as getting us Independence, even after having all those “Mandates” we the voters have given to them.
Now we have Humza Yousaf insisting he will have no deals with ALBA, who are pro Independence, (even tho it might not be quite as radical as we would hope for there,) yet he was more than pleased to do deals with Greens who have shown themselves to be openly against Independence!
We would hope SNP members demand their “Leaders”, or what passes for such, to be more open to doing deals with the likes of ALBA, than the pro union lots.
I’ve just read that the First Minister has been asking MSP Sarwar in for tea!
That can’t be true, can it?
As for Greens, I think they will lose next too everybody at any up coming Scottish elections. They certainly deserve to!
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The Scottish Greens rely on regional votes. There’s no indication at present that their vote has been affected by the shenanigans. I reckon they’re at or near base-vote level now. So, their seats are pretty safe.
There is nothing untoward about the First Minister talking to opposition leaders – if, in fact, the rumours are true. At the moment, Yousaf is desperate enough to look for salvation wherever he can find it.
As for the rest, that’s a big aye!
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I get that the First Minister will want to talk to others, but he seems more willing to talk to others who just so happen to be anti Independence, while not wanting to talk to those who are for Independence!
He still keeps up the Sturgeon hostility to ALBA, which isn’t too helpful as far as his position goes, or his standing with many Independence voters..
Seems too many SNP politicians in my view, are misjudging us, or simply don’t care to want to try understand the Independence voter these days. The suggestion by one Glasgow MP that European nations would be anti Salmond because he once hosted a show on Russian television, is rather far fetched
Regards the Greens, they do have a certain voter base, but they also benefited greatly from pro Independence voters who thought they were for Independence.
I’d like to think most of those Independence voters now see the Greens as being openly hostile today and so, my hope at least, is Greens don’t get the same number of MSPs, next time around.
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Yousaf also has a meeting scheduled with Ash Regan. So, it’s not true to say that he isn’t willing to talk to people who are pro-independence. Whether he is more or less willing is hard to determine objectively.
The SNP leadership’s “hostility to Alba” is perfectly understandable. From the outset, Alba Party was set up to be in conflict with the SNP. The Alba leadership made a pure arse of things right from the beginning. You can’t put your party in electoral competition with another party and not expect that party to see you as electoral competition.
Alba should never have contensted the 2021 Holyrood election. It should have been launch as an inepoendence campaigning organisation first and foremost. The party should have used the opportunity to get itself organised. It could always enter the electoral fray later. But the period of the Holyrood election should have been used to astablish a collaborative relationship with the SNP which would serve both parties well in future electoral contests. And, more importantly. would have better served Scotland’s cause than the current tribal stand-off.
Fucking politicians!
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I would agree ALBA could have done things better.
I think it quite a bad mistake for them to want to have candidates at this upcoming Westminster election.
They don’t need to do that at this time, and will just further turn SNP folks against them.
Much of the hostility we see between the two comes from Nicola Sturgeon’s animosity for Alex Salmond, and the bitterness is more or less down to that.
It seems to be more from the Sturgeon supporters more than from others within SNP, tho ALBA has its own share of folks who are not without fault, as well.
It has been unfortunate to the Independence movement, and that Yousaf has continued with it so far, at least.
We have to end this stupid feud between these two groups.
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ALL feuding has to stop and stop immediately regardless of who thinks they are right an a’body else is wrang. United we stand, divided we fall, the Independence movement ignores that at our peril, be aware!!
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A very worthy sentiment, Robert. And totally unrealistic. The tribalism that has infected our politics is incurable. The feuding just is not going to stop. To proceed as if it might is to proceed on the basis of a fallacy. There’s no way that can work out well.
If we are to find a way forward it will have to be in spite of the feuding, not because a miraculous peace has descended upon us. One thing that might help is if all the different nominally pro-independence parties were shouted down every time they made any reference to any of the other nominally pro-independence parties. If these parties’ politicians and propagandists were forced to talk only about themselves – their own positions and policies – then they might better focus on developing those policies and positions. Who knows!? They might even get to the point where they have sustainable positions and deliverable policies!
Joking aside, being deprived of the option of vilifiying competitors, we might reasonably hope that the bastards would have a bit less to say. Laura Kuenssberg would have to take up knitting. Which, from my perspective, would make for much more riveting viewing.
Just don’t hope for an end to the squabbling. It’s engrained in the system now. Literally, they can’t help themselves.
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Alba and the SNP have something in common; they both pretend that the SNP are nationalists.
The independence movement clearly requires some honesty.
Independents for Independence are trying to answer that call.
It is an omnishambles.
At least Alex Salmond is now acknowledging where it all went wrong and admitting that handing power to Nicola Sturgeon was a gigantic mistake.
I suppose the criminal justice system could introduce some truth and justice. However all the evidence suggests Police Scotland and COPFS are politicised and corrupt. As corrupt as the SNP and, it seems, corrupted by the SNP.
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My sentiments too that the SNP is corrupted from within and offers little hope gaining independence for Scotland. I am retiring next year but have all faith in the clowns running the show. Their saving grace is they are far better than the unionist clowns like Ross, Sarwar and ACH.
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