I was watching This Week on the BBC last night, and Andrew Neil teased John Nicolson that the SNP had given up campaigning for Independence, and never mentioned it any more. I have known John since student days, and much respect him. He is a very professional man and put in a very professional performance on the show. He can be relied on, despite his arch asides, to follow a party line.
How did John reply to the charge that the SNP had stopped campaigning for Independence? Did he reply, “No Andrew, we remain fully committed to the goal of Independence and that is our number one priority.”?
No.
He said “we have to respect the decision of the electorate”, a line taken straight from Nicola Sturgeon.
The problem with this is that it is exactly the Blairite line. Liz Kendall argued in effect that the electorate voted Tory, so Labour have to be Red Tories to respect the electorate.
It is a trite phrase. Nobody would argue you should disrespect the electorate. But it then elides into a distortion. To respect the verdict of the electorate means to accept your loss on this occasion and the processes of the state proceed on that basis, without any attempt to subvert the democratic decision. It does NOT mean the losing side had to change its beliefs, go quiet, or stop campaigning ready for the next time.
Since the referendum I have spoken on many stages in favour of Independence across Scotland, under the aegis of a whole variety of organisations only a minority of which are anathema to the SNP. Yet it occurs to me that of all the distinguished people I have shared platforms with, I have not witnessed a single one of the SNP’s MPs argue for Independence. To my certain knowledge they have declined many invitations to do so.
The SNP instead is setting out its stall as a kinder and more efficient manager of the governmental institutions of Scotland within the UK. It is elevating managerialism into a cult. Forget Independence and admire John Swinney’s figures. This is reinforced by another managerialist subtext, “the only organised opposition at Westminster.” Opposing the Tories is undoubtedly a good thing. But all this is symptomatic of the SNP becoming over-comfortable within the governmental institutions of the United Kingdom. All the energy expended pointlessly on the glorified local council powers of the Scotland Act while our country is dragged into yet another neo-con war against the will of the Scottish people.
When the media were promoting a narrative of potential ill-behaviour by new SNP MP’s, Tommy Sheppard famously declared “We have not come to act up, but to settle up!” What precisely have the SNP MP’s done that showed a scintilla of desire to “settle up” and end the Union? Where are the Parnellite tactics? A more honest declaration would be:
“We have not come to settle up, but to settle in!”
John Nicolson was led on to discussing his prospects of re-election last night, in response to a joke about Michael Portillo’s defeat. Andrew Neil gently reminded him he was not meant to want to be in Westminster long term. I am willing to bet a million pounds with anybody that the SNP structure is already giving more thought to defending its Westminster seats than to ending the union before the next Westminster election. I think deep down everybody reading this will find they believe that too.
Leadership loyalists will respond with a) more managerialism – we run the country better blah blah blah – and b), the argument that the SNP has to entrench in power before trying again for independence and win trust by – more managerialism. Oh OK, that’s actually the same argument. They don’t have another one.
The problem with this is gravity. In politics no party remains at the heights of popularity forever. Events take their toll. I suspect that what Nicola agreed with Dave this week about extending the extreme surveillance state to Scotland will be a little wave of erosion once we get told of it. The SNP will, regardless of anything I think or write, sweep the Holyrood elections. But that will likely be the high point of their absolute dominance of Scottish politics.
Let me put it this way. It is definitely a possibility that the coming real domination of both MPs and MSPs will never happen again. If the SNP do not even try to use that dominance to deliver Independence, then what is the point of the SNP?
Oh sorry, I forgot. They manage the institutions better, and are an effective opposition at Westminster. That apparently is the point. But not what I joined for.
NWO is upon us
“Scotland can NEVER be free unless the Freemason Lodge in Edinburgh is neutered. Simples.”
________________
Simple indeed. Is that your personal variant of the “it’s all the fault of the J***s”?
“It exists because of repeated attempts by foreign jihadists to carry out cross-border terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.”
____________________
Now why would jihadists attack Israel, I mean it’s not like they’ve stolen land and murdered thousands is it.
I mean they’re unlikely to have committed terrorist acts, and blamed them on others to start wars.
Only a country that had commited such vile acts, (with the help and consent of Western forces I might add) would require such an iron dome defence.
Mind you I don’t recall al Qaeda or IS or ISIL or even bin Laden ever attacking Israel, but then why would they, bite the hand that feeds them.
RoS
“… a unnamed treasury official inadvertently blurted out that Scotland would’ve kept Sterling in the event of independence.”
and
“The reality of course… is that preventing Scotland using Sterling was a no go from the start”
___________________
Which is all very well but does nothing to answer my point that Scotland would have lost control of monetary policy.
Kindly explain how an independent Scotland which used the pound sterling could keep oontrol of its monetary policy.
Thank you.
RoS
The jihadists care as little for the Palestinians as did/do the Arab states which are Israel’s neighbours.
One piece of evidence for that – amoungst many – is the continued existence, since 1948/9, of Palestinian refugee camps.
There have been several mass movements of refugees since WW2, starting with the ethnic Germans expelled from Czechoslovakia and the part of Eastern Germany taken by Poland at the end of the war. All of those refugees were absorbed and the refugee camps were no more. That has not been the case with the Palestinian refugee camps and the reason is that the Arab regimes cynically kept them in being as a stick with which to beat Israel in the field of international opinion.
Shame on those cynical Arab regimes.
From the downright surreal to completely off their rocker. David Cameron revealed that their was a deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia to vote each other on the panel of the UN Human Rights Council, back in 2013.
When questioned on the lunacy of voting a fox into the hen house Cameron replied Saudi Arabia furnished Britain with intelligence that keeps us safe.
“Correct me if I’m wrong but I was under the impression that after the UK govt said that it would not give an independent Scotland what it wanted on the currency, that SNP policy thereby became no longer credible.”
_________________
No Habb, above is the comment you posted, originally.
Scotland would have lost control of interest rates, which may have changed after a decade or so. If Scotland could’ve set up a central bank (not privately owned) to fund investments thus removing reliance on the BoE as a surrogate central bank.
I take on board your point of borrowing and interest rates as loss of control in the short term.
“The jihadists care as little for the Palestinians as did/do the Arab states which are Israel’s neighbours.”
_________________
Of course they do, Iran aside most of them are Western, Israeli or Saudi Arabian backed, why would they give a monkeys about Palestinians or their plight.
I don’t particularly give a shit about Israel or Saudi Arabia, it’s the West and especially Britain that I require to set higher standards.
You do realise that you and the other establishment muppets are the laughing stock of this blog, by trying to defend the indefensible.
Has the troll slithered back under its Cheltenham/Tel Aviv bridge, I wonder.
Republicofscotland, this one has been doing the rounds today…
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/12/historic-new-harpers-article-exposes-controls-america.html
It comes shortly after this:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/14/saudi-arabia-announces-military-alliance-terrorism
Also doing the rounds is this old video of Roland Dumas, former foreign secretary of France…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz-s2AAh06I
… who said, that two years before the ‘Arab spring’ kicked-off in 2011, that MI6 agents approached him about joining in a plot to overthrow the Syrian government.
Sorry, Craig, for being a bit off-topic, but Scottish nationalism seems to have its head on this thread.
Habba-Troll-Clown: “Oh Macky, do stop masturbating in front of your photo of Mr Putin”
I’m not the prize wanker who keeps littering this blog with non-stop troll ejaculations; I’m sure that it’s a substitute for sex for you, one handedly rewarding yourself for every “smart” & offensive comment.
It’s a wonder you’re not physically blind as well as mentally & morally blind.
Rob-G.
Thanks for that very interesting link.
I think Craig Murray is right SNP are not pursuing independence. I find it hard to believe you think there will ever be a majority of people wanting it in Scotland. Snp lied to the people of Scotland it wasnt economically viable and they are not even going to use the new powers they are getting re income tax. There will be harsh cuts to the councils and we can only hope that Swinney doesnt repeat last years underspend of £379 million.
I voted Yes in the referendum although a lifelong labour member and supporter,but if there is ever another referendum I would vote No as I would not want to be governed by the SNP,their record is appalling and they are pursuing a budget almost identical to Osbornes .
So I think you need to realise that people are not coming round to voting Yes who voted No previously and a number of Yes voters wouldnt vote Yes next time
So we got Imperial airstrikes on both Syrian and Iraqi army outposts now. Mistakes? Maybe.
If not, carving out Kurdistan in east Syria/west Iraq won’t sit well with either Government. Turkey will be apoplectic and might send in some serious firepower.
And so the re-ordering of the Middle East will involve Turkey, in a hot war with Russia, Iran, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. All is going according to plan.
ISIS has served its purpose, and can now be eliminated.
I would read that ‘no attacks on civilians’ clause in the new UNSC resolution very carefully if I were Russia. Which of course I’m not.
There’s an obvious size difference.
I can’t verify this video, but will chuck it into the mix anyway…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fguspd24hzQ
The SNP appears to have studied the history of the Parti Quebecois in great detail and arrived at the decision to repeat every one of its mistakes.
This is marvellous news for the unionists who now know that they will return to power at Holyrood within a couple of electoral cycles-as the SNP government, caught between the conformism of its elites and the constraints imposed by ‘superior’ governments, particularly Wall St, is replaced by Tweedle Dee, which will probably be an amalgam of the Libs and the Labs.
The Westminster representatives will follow the same pattern-they will be caught between public desire for an alternative to Tory government, which they cannot offer, and disillusion with Holyrood policies leasing to a reflexive vote against them.
In Canada the Liberals, who twenty years ago couldn’t win a seat in French Quebec, are back in power and the PQ is falling apart under the leadership of a political novice who inherited billions and poses as a “competent manager” etc.
Already the wheels are falling off the Tartan Tiger strategy, even among those who hardly know where Dublin is, and the necessity of choosing between the currency and austerity is becoming urgent.
The PQ are not the only object lesson-Syriza is another.
Habbbakuk…. less hasbara more hasbro?
I thin you might be succumbing to activist groupthink.
Think about those outside of your circle of dedicated Indy supporters to those who (rightly or wrongly) voted to remain in the Union and those who voted Yes but with significantly less conviction than yourself – they are not going to take kindly to going through another intense Indyref campaign, unless there is a material change in circumstance.
If you are struggling to see others’ point of view, then picture this:
Sometime soon, the UK votes, by a narrow margin, to remain in the EU (rightly or wrongly). Instead of curling up and dying, UKIP joins with eurosceptic Tories and becomes reinvigorated and immediately starts talking about when the next EU referendum should take place. How would you feel in those cirucmstances?
I agree with you, Craig. The SNP’s managerialist tendencies are certainly not what I opted for when I joined, in a spirit of solidarity, with what I believed to be the main vehicle for achieving independence. Looks like folk like me have been thoroughly duped.
Turns out even Alex Salmond appeared just as interested in Devo Max as independence. It was Cameron who gambled on allowing a simple Yes/No vote and won, albeit through all manner of dirty tricks.
2016 will see the SNP achieving the closest thing to absolute power they can expect. They never will have such an opportunity to achieve independence. But will they take it? I hope for our sakes your concerns will turn out to be wrong. For I fear that 2016’s landslide will do no more than corrupt them absolutely 🙁
Strange article from a man who purports to support the Independence cause with the SNP being the only party that’s ever going to help us to achieve it. Your article seems, if anything, to be focused on attempting to manipulate your readers from supporting such party.
I hope that this article has not been written due to personal resentment and bitterness in relation to SNP ”knock-backs’ Craig?
Nicola Sturgeon has been bombarded constantly with ”when will you call for another Referendum” and accused of focusing on Independence to the detriment of the day to day running of the country. Maybe she and her colleagues are trying to avoid the continual carping and the fact that ‘Independence talk’ is being used day in and day out by the propaganda machine in an attempt to undermine her position / the party in general. To say or even think that people like Nicola Sturgeon don’t actually want Independence any time soon is just farcical, as she’s spent the whole of her adult life working her butt off towards achieving that goal.
The term ‘respecting the decision of the Electorate’ will be the line that they will ALL use, stick to, to quash further discussion of the subject and the Electorate deciding ‘when’ is exactly what will happen. We’ll get our Independence when the time is right, that is when it’s clear that well over 50% of Scots actually want it, and not before. And trying to compare the aforementioned term to the Blairite situation makes no sense whatsoever.
It would help if you would outline exactly what you’d be doing right now, if you were in Nicola Sturgeon’s shoes, to achieve Independence, ASAP, Craig with at least 50% of Scots not wanting it right now.
Peter A Bell,
I do apologize. I underestimated you..but I could see quality in your words
And then you wrote this…
” Independence is the default status of nations. We are denied that status by an ancient wrong. It is time to put it right. ”
I mean – that is so Beautiful.
Thank You. I agree with you. What do we do about it?
You are obviously a clever guy.
Any Ideas?
Tony
Always interested by your view Craig, but I think you’re wide of the mark here.
The comparison between Blairism, which really was/is a complete capitulation to the power of capital and the SNP as a primarily managerialist party doesn’t stack up.
I don’t think you can claim that SNP leadership has put independence down the agenda because you don’t share the strategy they have decided to get there.
Like you and many of my compadres on the canvassing trail, I am – as an active campaigning SNP member – suspicious of its centralising conformism. However I think it remains the only vehicle for the political uncoupling of Scotland from an extreme capitalist state.
There is a tendency for the pro-independence movement to be too dismissive of the real reasons why a majority of people voted No, so that we seem superior, even arrogant. Like you I believe we have the better arguments but No voters have to be persuaded with extreme self-restraint and understanding and I don’t see that in your approach here.
Mary had the right idea about this blog. A fifth columnist. Good bye
How very strange you should write about the SNP being in danger of missing the opportunity of the last three centuries,
I wrote this to my MP a couple of days ago
I read Craig Murrays blog https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/12/jack-straw-responds-to-alex-salmond-with-blatant-lie/ with a growing sense of alarm ,I was one of the people who told him to get over himself when he wasn’t selected to stand for the SNP I get that the SNP runs a tight ship and applaud you for that, but what I can not understand is the SNP’s seeming dislike of him when he clearly supports the cause of independence,
Are we so replete with enough independence supporters that we can pick and choose what type of support we will welcome and other “types”are persona non grata, eg Rev Stu Campbell who does far more to keep the independence cause alive than many (I’m sorry to say) SNP MP’s , eg Tasmina Ahmed Sheiks inability to correct her inquisitor that Trump was not made a “Global Scot” by Alex Salmond but Jack McConnell,
Are we to see a continuation of the (frankly) lacklustre performance of the SNP so disappointingly displayed during the referendum campaign, which everyone (including me) was waiting for the killer punch to be unleashed in the last week of the campaign just to see our magnificent grassroots campaign so badly let down by people such as Jenkins (I googled “leader of the yes campaign” and the response was Alex Salmond) I knew we were going to lose the minute he was stuck in front of a camera and challenged to say whether he believed the BBC were biased, and he cravenly said “NO”
When Oh when is the SNP going to take a zero tolerance approach to the fallacious outpourings of the media, who have become noticeably bolder in their base lies knowing that Westminster has their back?
It is simply not good enough to say “oh but we don’t get a chance to put out the SNP message by the BBC/STV shills”, when we do get the chance eg Tasmina, we MUST NOT squander it!
My God even Angus Robertson (of all people) got caught by a puerile assault by Andrew Neil with a complete pile of nonsense and who, when Rev Stu Campbell completely demolished his plainly idiotic assertion that the only area of the UK NOT to suffer cuts was Scotland, felt confident enough to brass it out on twitter in the sure knowledge the SNP would not stand up to him, I am seriously beginning to wonder if the party has reached the peak of its ambitions and happy to sit back and enjoy it while it lasts.
The SNP gave us the desire, it MUST not assume that the “current” support of the public is without consequences, the Slab found out the hard way that what the voters giveth the voters can taketh away, for everyones sake don’t dimiss your support, or you may forever regret it!
A vote on Europe, as it stands at present, would take England out of the EU. That will be the right time for another referendum, when the SNP has to speak up for or against staying in the EU or the Union of old.
Mind, the horizon is blurred. Those who think that their leaving the EU would mean they can avoid the TTIP,TPP and TISA might be surprised, because the economic desperation outside such treaty has the capacity to quash countries.
Farrage and his lot have no answers at all, they are playing in the sand, whilst multinationals are planning a global economic network that is supported and strengthened by right wing neocon pressure groups in power, as well as NATO’s pushover expansion, a dangerous mix.
I’m yet to see what the new coop between Russia and the US will pan out as, there is still limbo time to get over, historically the time when the neo cons of the Levant strike.
The EU will have to make their secret negotiations public before such a vote,not that it matters, in or out of the EU, this country will sign up to the TTIP agreements, for the simple reasons that they are running the off shore show.
Thanks to ken 2 for his many comments here, another good poster who has joined Mary’s understandable exit from this cyber bullying blog.
I fear you’re right Craig, the corruptions of office have only failed once – in Germany in 1937; not a happy precedent. My heart sank when I saw Sturgeon had been premature grandma’d by the image police. The bourgeois credentials of the Snats are showing through so a policy of using them as a vehicle to gain independence, then flushing them round the u-bend of history, might have had its day.
Slightly O/T
They have routinely failed to investigate any banking crime committed by the Organised banking mafias, and none of their senior money launderers have gripped the rail at the Old Bailey.
They have continued to allow billions of pounds worth of dirty foreign money to flood into the City of London without requiring any routine ‘Know Your Customer’ checks being undertaken.
“Now, the Tories have very neatly sidelined what should have been a most effective crackdown on fat-cat bank bosses who connive at reckless criminal tactics within their institutions, enabling them to pad their profits and increase their already obscenely inflated bonuses.
Labour and Lib Dem peers joined together to voice their fury after the move which was slipped almost silently into an obscure new banking law . The change is being moved in the small print of the 60-page Bank of England Bill and may still be challenged in the House of Lords.”
http://rowans-blog.blogspot.co.uk/
Excellent blog by Rowan Bosworth Davies an ex fraud squad officer
his work has to be seen as vital, and the Tories slight of hand last week, when other headlines dominated the MSM, was designed to allow banks control over their own actions. It worked so well in the past that they do not need outside regulations hahaha.
In 2008/9, according to Roberto Saviano, 352 billion of laundered drugs money kept our banks liquid, part of the 8.4 trillion off shore slush funds at work in the City of London Corp., allegedly.
“Incidentally gold backed currencies lasted successfully for thousands of years.”
That’s just awesomely delusional.
eddie-g we are struggling with semantics here. Let me put it this way..
“incidentally gold and silver have acted as a stable store of wealth for thousands of years, whilst no paper currency has ever stood the test time”.
Scotland would making a big mistake it it adopted the western central banking model, as we are in the last days of the present monetary system, the $ is on its way out, and various shades of chaos are likely next.
Any country holding large Gold reserves are going to be in a FAR better position then countries holding $,£ Euro Yen etc. Remember what happened to 40% of the UK’s Gold reserve and who did it, (a Scotsman without a fkn clue)
WARNING this guy (below) is a gold bug, the above is written by a gold bug, we are most defiantly biased and we have put our ‘money’ where our mouth is.
Hidden Secrets Of Money Ep 2
min 10 the 7 stages. Min 14 The last 140 years in 10 mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdSq5H7awi8
“Has the troll slithered back under its Cheltenham/Tel Aviv bridge, I wonder.”
_______________
Is that a reference to me?
Hell of a long bridge, I’d say.
You were on your how manyeth bottle when you wrote that, you joker? 🙂
Trump has really done it now by saying he would forbid any US citizens from setting foot in the West Bank. Will his ceramic teflon survive this?? The entire synagogue of satan should be after his ass now, he is finished. Ironically the muzzies will have Adelman and Koch to thank for it !!
RobG
“Also doing the rounds is this old video of Roland Dumas, former foreign secretary of France…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kz-s2AAh06I
… who said, that two years before the ‘Arab spring’ kicked-off in 2011, that MI6 agents approached him about joining in a plot to overthrow the Syrian government.”
__________________________
You must have been on your fifth bottle, Rob.
Roland Dumas was stepped down as Foreign Minister in 1993. When was “two years before the Arab Spring”? Why should “MI6 agents” have approached someone who had stepped down as Foreign Minister more than a decade earlier?
And do you believe that MI6 would make a direct approach to any French Minister, acting or former?
You credulous fool 🙂