A senior SNP elected representative told me a couple of weeks ago that the party hierarchy were intent on making sure there would be strict control over debate at the upcoming conference. The leadership fear pressure from the membership on holding another Independence referendum, using the mandate won at the last Holyrood elections. You will recall that the SNP was elected on a promise of a new referendum in the event of a significant change in the status quo, specifically including Brexit.
Being well aware from the AUOB marches and other events that the grassroots are ready for another campaign, and with the opinion polls very encouraging, it seemed to me that the foot soldiers deserved at least to be able to voice an opinion on when and how they went into battle. So I suggested back to my friend that, as I am attending as a delegate, I would hold a fringe meeting within the Conference venue on the routes to Independence. This might include how we get a new Indyref in the face of Westminster opposition, its timing, and lessons learned for the Yes movement from 2014 on how to win it. The idea was also to explore other potential routes to Independence including a National Assembly.
They replied that I would not be allowed to hold a fringe meeting on Indyref2. I thought they were being over-dramatic. So I asked my friend the doughty Peter A Bell to join me as a speaker (he agreed in principle), and I was planning to ask James Kelly and Stuart Campbell as well, but first applied for a room in the Conference Centre so I could give them a date.
It didn’t go well.
So I can hire a room on the SNP fringe for the purposes of commercial promotion, but not to promote Scottish Independence.
The Scotsman or the rest of the Unionist media can hire a room for a meeting, but the pro-Independence new media is not allowed to hire a room – even though its readership is bigger than the Scotsman’s.
I am not asking to speak in the Conference, but just to hold a Fringe meeting. The Conference Fringe is where members can discuss things that are of political interest without claiming to be dictating, or in line with, party policy. I am a delegate offering to pay the going rate for the room, and rooms are available. As it happens, the policy we wish to discuss, Independence and how to use the mandate from the last Holyrood election, is bang in line with official party policy anyway.
I went into this with genuine innocence, not believing my friends’ prediction that a fringe event on Indyref2 would not be allowed. I do not imagine for a moment Ms Slider was giving her answers without consultation with Chief Executive Peter Murrell, who is also Nicola Sturgeon’s partner. When a party becomes so Stalinist in its organisation it will not even permit mildly dissenting voices – or just not totally subservient voices – even to express themselves on its fringe, it is not really democratic.
If anybody has managed to book a fringe meeting, and is looking for a speaker?
Here’s an idea, have a vote on the status of the union which doesn’t disenfranchise the English. Scotland would be independent in an instant.
True story: some English people were travelling with a number of Scandinavians in the Scottish highlands and stayed in a youth hostel where a 20-something Scot, who probably assumed they were all Scandinavians, explained in the whingey but starry-eyed tone that in pre-referendum weeks was characteristic of many Scottish nationalists that “Other countries have their independence so why shouldn’t Scotland?” When one of the group pointed out that England hadn’t got its independence either, he was speechless.
Moral: nationalists have small horizons.
Quite a lot of people don’t know the answer to the question “What was the only time when a team not representing a sovereign country won the football World Cup?” (And quite a lot of people outside of Britain don’t understand when you tell them.)
Well, at least the English get what they vote for – tory governments and brexit for example. Why should Scots have to suffer that? It is effectively colonialism no matter how they try to dress it up as some sort of equal union.
Scots got what they voted for – remaining in the UK. It’s called democracy. You don’t always get what you want.
Scots didn’t get what they voted for. If you look at the demographic I bet you’ll find that the No vote was secured by English people living in Scotland.
That was a big difference between the two referenda. Non-UK Europeans living in the UK didn’t get to vote in the EU referendum, whereas everyone with an address in Scotland got to vote in the Independence referendum.
And no. The anti-immigrant attitude that secured brexit features far less in Scotland. The Remain vote in Scotland wasn’t a resentment reaction. Rather, the No vote was because the Scottish didn’t think the English would be stupid enough to leave the EU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVy7faNKEtM
Note the applause, and its timing. Recorded at the Edinburgh Festival.
If I want a sensible political conversation in which people actually know the facts rather than making smug comments based on idiot sound-bites, I’ve a much, much better chance when I’m in Scotland. You’d have had to experience the Independence Campaign to know what I mean.
Although I have voted SNP for many years now and voted YES in the independence referendum this is the reason I am no longer a member of any political party. Good luck to those who can ‘thole’ it but I find that continually having to compromise on your own beliefs eventually leads to you not understanding what your beliefs really are, and ultimately to political confusion. But as I say, good luck to those who can manage it. After all, we need political parties to ever have a chance of getting anything done. I’m just saying what suits me and my particular temperament.
The SNP under Sturgeon has been a complete flop. Brexit was a gift from heaven and she blew it. She backed down in the face of the most humiliating treatment that any Prime Minister has exhibited towards Scotland in decades — “now is not the time”. Only a complete bottle-bag would have stood for that.
Sturgeon’s response was to craft a stance and path that prioritised doing everything possible to avoid upsetting May and the rancid British establishment. Thus, Scotland has to wait until it is ripped out of the EU before deciding if it wants to stay in. It’s nonsensical. And it’s boring. And it’s weak.
It’s my suspicion that the SNP is divided over all this. I suspect Salmond was at odds with the ‘curl up and die’ approach that the leadership favours, and it wouldn’t surprise me to hear that this was why they decided to throw him to the wolves. We will find out.
Anyone who expects Sturgeon to mobilise the independence movement against the wishes of Westminster hasn’t been paying attention — she has never done anything radical like that in her political life. And let’s be honest, if you aren’t prepared to do that, if you aren’t prepared to oppose and challenge Westminster, you really aren’t ever going to get independence.
The big problem with the ‘wait and see what happens with brexit’ approach is this, though; once out of the EU, Scotland is officially a caged play-thing of Westminster that nobody anywhere will care about or pay attention to. At that point Scotland is locked in a room alone with a sociopath that is 12 times bigger than it.
Scotland is like Gaza without the hope.
I seem to remember reading somewhere in the aftermath of Indyref 1 that an independent Scottish female MEP (whose name escapes me) stated that the SNP was controlled by MI5. The party certainly often gives the impression of being controlled by external forces of some sort. I was quite shocked to see the SNP’s Westminster contingent back the establishment line that British soldiers should not be prosecuted for war crimes. The double standards and rank humbug about war crimes is always what gets me: nothing is too bad to impute to Saddam, Assad, Ghaddafi or Milosevic, but dare anyone suggest that British forces might have questions to answer, and suddenly all the talk turns to the impossibility of acquiring reliable evidence of events that go back a long way, and anyway soldiers were under pressure in hostile environments blah blah blah – as if the Iraqi or Syrian army – or anyone else – could not use exactly the same defence. Either you take war crimes seriously when your own side commits them, or else abolish the whole concept of war crimes altogether, and stop bombarding us with moralistic claptrap about the crimes, real and invented, of those governments on the Neocons’ hit-list.
I also seem to remember quite a few persons opining at the time that the Indyref was rigged. Personally I find it hard to imagine that the British establishment would sacrifice Scotland at the whim of Scottish voters. Apart from anything else so much of the pageantry of the UK brand, and of UK royalty in particular – bagpipes, castles, kilts, tartan, the works – being connected to Scotland. Scotland was and is too big to lose.
Jude93,
Great comment. He may well have been a Scottish Soldier. I dunno. I don’t ask such questions but about 10 years ago, he climbed up Nelson’s Coulumn In Trafalgar Square, and played His Bag Pipes at the Top. I think he is a window cleaner now – You know these big tall skyscrapers in the City of London. Hairy job, but someones got to do it. I suspect he is paid very well, and only does his Scottish music for a laugh. He occasionally does a bit of Canadian and his own stuff too. He’s a nice bloke and he can sing and play guitar too.
Tony
Don’t ever forget that the big electoral rise in the SNP happened in the early 1970s (from 1 seat in 1970 to 7 in Feb 1974 to 11 in Oct 1974) and they took votes from Labour. Within a few years of the radical socialist upsurges in and around 1968 in Clydeside, in South Wales, and in Northern Ireland, the – can you believe it? – the nationalist forces in the three countries grew to a significant strength. Don’t tell me that the British state didn’t have a hand in those developments that must have had them jumping for joy. All across Europe including Britain and Ireland, the bourgeoisie were crapping themselves in 1968. In 1972 and 1974 the British coalminers won great victories. In the sphere of parliamentary politics, the rise of nationalism? Of course the secret state were involved. (Few understand even now that in Northern Ireland with Bloody Sunday the British state achieved what they wanted.)
And everyone on the left who has some historical knowledge remembers who it was who brought down the Labour government in 1979, ushering the Tories into office for the next 18 years, during which time they wrecked Britain, work to be continued under Torified Labour led by Tory Blair. Yes it was the SNP.
And why does the SNP leadership support the monarchy? Funny that.
What you’re calling nationalism is actually a national liberation movement. Using your clumsy logic, any movement that wants to free itself from the clutches of another country is nationalist.
Some of us are very happy that the SNP isn’t socialist. Indeed, some of us think that socialism is the biggest scam going.
You ask why the SNP leadership supports the monarchy. You might ask why all the commonwealth countries do too, but don’t.
The idea of monarchy is an insult to the intelligence, of course. I guess you should be asking why the English support the monarchy before you ask anyone else.
Before you criticise my logic, @Hatuey, you might consider the utility of your notion of a country that “wants”. How can a country want anything?
Thats you ignored.
‘Few understand even now that in Northern Ireland with Bloody Sunday the British state achieved what they wanted’, care to explain?
N – I’m not an expert on the SNP or the Scottish situation generally, but in Ireland the British deep state sponsored left-wing – or pseudo-left-wing movements to outflank nationalists – not the other way around. It’s now abundantly clear that the British deep state was behind the rise of the Workers Party – the political wing of the Official IRA – from which the much better known Provisional IRA broke away. It sounds rather bizarre to claim that a group calling itself the IRA would be the cutting edge of anti-nationalist propagandising in Ireland – but that is exactly what the Workers Party/OIRA were. And, by the admission fo many of their past members, they had very close relations with the British state and the British security forces in Northern Ireland – so much so that the British facilitated and even participated in their organised crime empire.
As for the Provisionals, the evidence that they too were heavily infiltrated by the British spooks is incontrovertible. The young Gerry Adams (who signifcantly had initially thrown his lot in with the left-wing Official IRA rather than the Provisionals) portrayed the 1970s Sinn Fein Eire Nua policy – which promised to grant northern Irish Protestants a large degree of self-government – as a sop to Unionism – and took over Sinn Fein and the PIRA on the basis of representing a more hardcore militant brand of Irish republicanism (a classic deep state stratagem this – outflank your enemy by getting your assets within the targetted movemenet to pose as the super-militant alternative). Fast forward almost thirty years later and Adams’ right hand man, Denis Donaldson, publicly admits to being a British agent (and is shot dead in Donegal a short time later). Likewise, the head of the Provos “nutting squad” – whose role was to find and punish British agents – turned out to be… a British agent. Adams’ driver was likewise exposed as in the pay of the Brits. And no one now seriously disputes that the British were very keen to keep Adams at the helm of Sinn Fein – so much so that they made sure a supposed assassination attempt on Adams by their poodles in a loyalist death squad failed (they put weak bullets in the guns used in the “attack”).
Sinn Fein don’t even seriously pretend to be a nationalist party anymore – their role now is to promote Clintonista style globalism and social liberalism among the republican minded elements of the Irish population – north and south.
Jim Callaghan disagreed. The SNP rightly withdrew support when Labour went back on their promise of a Scottish devolution referendum. However Callaghan blamed back stabbers in his own party for the Tories getting in.
Correct, Jeff, and “And everyone on the left who has some historical knowledge“ knows that too.
Craig, the SNP went from for the people to from the people. You/We need another platform.
Even if it didn’t start out that way, its not inconceivable they have a long term mole in there. In fact it is almost guaranteed as they need to keep tabs on these movements. And of course, work to a position of great influence within.
@lokyc – They have levers of influence that amount to a damned sight more than “a long term mole” in there. But you are right that they will have people close to or at the very top.
Sadly, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book. For example, many trade unions have leaders (and organizational muscle) controlled by the corporation or industry group they nominally oppose.
I don’t know, I’m writing from New Zealand as an exiled Anglo-Scot, but take a keen interest in political matters in Scotland and England. But, it seems very strange that a party, called the Scottish National Party, for whom independence is their stated aim in their vision statement – “The SNP is committed to making Scotland the nation we know it can be. Our vision is of a prosperous country where everyone gets the chance to fulfil their potential. We want a fair society where no-one is left behind. And our vision is of Scotland as an independent country – equal to the very best.”, cannot accommodate a meeting, fringe or not, that discusses the very raison d’être of the party’s existence. It’s as if the Royal Society had their AGM and never discussed science or allowed a meeting to do so. Instead of this dictatorial and anti-democratic stance, horror, horror, the natives can’t stand or understand honest debate, it should indeed be compulsory that every conference would have at least one meeting on how independence for Scotland might be achieved. Then the issue becomes what it should be, not a surprise, opportunistic or underhand tactic reserved for some major economic or political catastrophe, but part of the continued, normal, ethical political discourse of the party and the citizens of Scotland. Basically I think Craig is right, and those posting supporting the SNP’s stance are wrong. The SNP is guilty at the least of an unfortunate political expediency, cynical or careless I don’t know, but if you can’t stand up for your deepest held values at all times, then those values are useless.
Craig – You cannot be surprised or shocked at this refusal. You specialize in being a totally independent thinker. This makes you a potential thorn in anybody’s side who is at all established, an unpredictable opinion bomb, a non-respecter of any authority beyond your own immediate sense of right and wrong. Not to say this is not an entertaining or useful position, but it means you are not going to be given a place at any establishment table. Didn’t you get the same reaction when you tried to become a candidate for elected office? Obviously they weigh up the potentially negative impact if they refuse you and the potential for damage if they accept you and then you don’t follow party line. And guess which side the balance sways…
In case you missed Craig’s tweets –
Craig Murray
@CraigMurrayOrg
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5h
A con trick – people assuming both black and white images are “Chepiga” and thus case proved, when only one on left is. And this image the only evidence in Bellingcat linking “Boshirov” and “Chepiga”. All the rest just sets out to prove “Chepiga” is in the GRU. 2/2
Show this thread
Craig Murray
Craig Murray
@CraigMurrayOrg
·
5h
The Chepiga/Boshirov evidence. The second two indeed identical because both “Boshirov”, from passport file and visa application. Only the one on left is “Chepiga”. Is person on left definitively the same as “Borishov” centre and right? Look at the nose. What do you think? 1/2
—
Oh no. He’s digging himself in deeper. ?
Surely the hair in your emoji should be purple like yours?
In my opinion all three photographs show the same person. I’ll call them LEFT, MIDDLE, and RIGHT.
LEFT AND MIDDLE
Sources have now been cited by the Times. They publish three photographs of Chepiga: LEFT, MIDDLE, and another one. They say these are passport photos from 2003 and 2009 and a police photo. The third one they show is poorly photocopied.
They also say that Colonel Chepiga has “more than 25 years of experience in covert operations”. If that is true, he must have started when he was 14 years old at the latest.
RIGHT
The source for this one being from travel documentation used by Boshirov to enter Britain in March 2018 is the Metropolitan Police.
See also this picture said to be of Chepiga in the Ukraine. If this were the only Chepiga photograph, the photographic case for saying Boshirov is Chepiga would be weak.
But if the left and middle photographs in Craig’s tweets are from Chepiga’s passport applications, the case is overwhelming.
Craig seems to be making a “Gatwick exit channels” kind of photoint error again.
Something is now falling into the place, @Anon1. We now have an explanation for what the banning of Russian athletes from international competitions has been about. It was about the GRU.
And the World-Anti Doping Agency voted on 20 September 2018 to re-instate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency after it suspended it in 2015.
Oh dear oh dear. That can’t have been the response Theresa May had in mind when she promised after the police named Boshirov and Petrov that measures would be taken.
Clutching at straws now …
photo on left has different facial features to the two photos on right, nose is a different shape on left pic wider between eyes, forehead wider on left pic, forehead to jaw line more of a v shape on left pic but parallel in two right pics, eyebrows on left pic round and evenly haired while more arched with more hair nearer nose in other two pics, top lip thicker in left pic, photo on left is not the same person as the two photos on right.
emailed the lady and my MP Mhairi Black this morning
About what?
Corbyn to Brussels to meet Barnier
http//news.sky.com/story/jeremy-corbyn-heads-to-brussels-to-meet-eus-chief-brexit-negotiator-11509935
Starmer is accompanying him.
Michel Barnier is highly unlikely to accord Messrs Corbyn and Starmer any particular favours.
You’d know I suppose. Politicians talk to people. Government in trouble. Polls very close (for what it’s worth) they could end up in charge and brexit is one of the biggest things facing the UK right now. Favours isn’t the point.
Why should it be “favours”? Elucidate.
Starmer has been negotiating respectfully with Barnier, however when he gave a live interview to Sky about Labour’s intentions, regarding Brexit, Boris was present. He stuck his face in Starmer’s face, and, muttering under his breath, invited Starmer to ‘shag his arse’. Starmer went white around the gills and finished his sentence. Boris adopted a ‘Minotaur’ pose, glaring up at Starmer, and the interview was then politely terminated by Starmer, who had realised it would be unlikely to air on the 6 o’clock news. The interviewer had not heard Boris’s comment as she was finding Starmer’s detailed response interesting. Corbyn will no doubt be able to yay or nay these negotiations. It is very lovely that Brussels has named a Square in memory of Jo Cox, the murdered Labour MP
They are still trying to get over the break up of the Soviet Union (the saddest day of their lives?) so don’t expect any replies on the break up of the UK too soon.
Charles, I’m 100% in favour of Scottish independence. It’s actually one of the few things I really care about. I thought everyone here knew that.
As for the break up of the Soviet Union, I was in favour of that too. I also quite like capitalism which seems to put me at odds with most Scottish nationalists. I definitely don’t want to return to the sort of socialism of the 1970s — everyone was skint back then — and hope that an independent Scotland would be more of a tiger capitalist economy, like say Taiwan. And I quite like globalisation too.
There’s more…
I think if we could strengthen the UN, stop first world countries meddling in the affairs of others, and put an end to the arms industry, capitalism and globalisation would be a pretty good system — certainly better than any of the realistic alternatives on offer.
Oh, and I blame the middle classes for pretty much everything.
Philosophically I’m inclined towards anarchism but that’s largely down to the fact that most the institutions and authorities we have right now are corrupt. I guess that I just like my freedom. Syndicalism is a pile of crap, though, and only exists as an idea in the minds of people who take things too seriously.
Finally, I love technology. The internet, iPads, smart phones, gadgets, streaming TV, YouTube, etc., are all amazing things to me. I don’t understand how anyone could ever be bored in the modern world. And all that stuff has changed politics and society massively and for the better.
On top of all that, I like photography. I was into photography before everything went digital. I’ve embraced digital and now I like video making too. My idea of a great day is to sit in a bird hide with a camera and a flask of tea for 6 to 8 hours.
Anything else, just shout…
Who can blame them for rejecting an approach from an ex-UK Govt drone who is now against the SNP’s approach to the Skripal affair.
An approach that declared Putin guilty on the day the news broke in March, sans evidence. He rejected that cautious, highly diplomatic approach? How irresponsible of him.
Is there any way you can hire a room next door or over the road? Then leaflet members as they are entering conference.
They cant make the issue go away or control a narrative they dont like being discussed in Scotland.
Especiaally after Labour announced its opposition to the idea.
good luck with that.
This could be purely personal. Considering your rejection at candidate vetting and the frequent references by SNP tweeters to you as a ‘conspiracy loon’ I would have been rather surprised if your suggestion had been accepted. Throwing you out of the party would not be a good look, so they’re probably hoping that you get pissed off and leave. If it comes to that, give some thought to standing as an independent. You know where I live, and perhaps we could put together a team.
Nicola Sturgeon is feart. She has stated about how traumatic she found the result in 2014 and how she NEVER wants to feel that again. She has also stated she wants the foot soldiers to get out there and change minds to get the polls solidly over 50% for Yes. How solidly? Not a scoobie.
How do we get the apathetic, the busy, the annoyed soft Noes to engage in the absence of a formal campaign? It could be hard enough last time. Canvassing to take the temperature post Brexit we had doors slammed in our faces with ‘not another referendum’. This in the Yes City in the sort of suburb that was solidly Yes.
We need a timetable to IndyRef2 or some equivalent and we need it to be stated publicly so we can refer to it in justification when we chap a door. But Nicola is feart so we won’t get it.
At this rate I’ll have to move back to New Zealand to get to live in a self confident small Independent country. We have a female leader to be proud of at the moment. Jacinda isn’t feart.
I really don’t get the timetable thing. I can easily imagine it happening organically and spontaneously, with a million people on the streets of Glasgow in response to events. Brexit could be the catalyst; that is to say, the dire consequences of Brexit.
Of course, it would help if the SNP had a leader who was willing and able to make the argument. But it doesn’t.
If it happens as I’ve described above, I’d fully expect the SNP to turn up and assume control and when that happens I will be the first to tell them to fuck right off.
I believe the timetable thing is more to do with trying to predict the actions of Westminster, if you call a referendum, then immediately the UK gov call a snap GE, then that puts the whole thing into a tizz; if you call a referendum, then the UK gov decides to drop Brexit, or postpone it, then you have a whole host of other issues to deal with – you have to remember there is an 18 month minimum negotiation with the U.K. Gov in the event of independence – how well will that go with the current uk gov? – the EU is happy to accept Scotland in the EU, or more likely in a holding pen (EFTA type situation) while negotiations with England is happening, but what if England is still doing its own EU negotiations? Timing is very critical, without considering the effect on the voters, which makes the whole thing even more complicated. I suspect if an indyref is called the first thing that will happen is another GE will be called. Scotland isn’t in isolation (which is the point I guess) and needs to work within the system, a system that is trying very hard to ensure if fails. Yes Scotland could go ahead and crash out, but surely that isn’t the preferred method.
Thanks for that, contrary. I appreciate the response even if I think the reasoning has more flaws than my golf swing.
The wee Krankie MacMerkel is not to be trusted, for she has indicated throughout her leadership that she is a controlled opposition. At the very least, she has shown more concern for keeping her job until 2026 than she has of delivering independence. If she and Murrell ever deliver independence, I will partake in a humbling Paddy Ashdown-style hat-eating exercise.
Doesn’t sound good at all.
Tweet Nicola Sturgeon directly.
hehe, ….. if only Stalin knew.
I thought that the Yes movement was trying its hardest not to be tied to the SNP?
Having that at the conference would be grabbed by the media to back up that false claim so I can understand why it is not approved.
We should encourage Yes group meetings and new Yes groups to hold that. After all I would guess that the bulk folk at the conference will already be Yes voters and discussions will have already taken place at their branch meeting.
In this piece by Andrew Roth in the Guardian, he writes “A British court has charged Boshirov”.
Is Roth illiterate or something? Does he just click on “File article” to turn releases he gets from the Foreign Office into newspaper articles? And what happened at the Foreign Office when the release was being prepared? Did some illiterate “graduate” whose father knew somebody just sh*t something in favour of queen and country out of his a*sehole?
I mean how educated do you have to be to know that in Britain it’s not courts that charge people? That’s even before I start explaining that te jurisdiction here is called “England and Wales”. Maybe I should stop reading this cack?
“British investigators also believe one of the two men accused of poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal is Chepiga, the Guardian understands.” Ooh, Rothy boy, did you speak to someone in MI5? What an insider you must be!
I prefer RT. At least people there seem to have a sense of humour!
(Apologies for how badly written the next bit is, by Roth or his software. It’s still funny.)
“The station’s top brass have promoted the bizarre interview. It has already produced T-shirts with RT’s logo and Simonyan’s question from the interview: ‘Do you work for GRU?’ Boshirov, during the interview, shot back: ‘Do you?’ On Thursday, Simonyan posted a meme floating around the internet. ‘Are you Chepiga?’ she asks in a speech bubble. ‘Are you?’ Chepiga, or Boshirov, replies.”
Classic!
I should add: it was Petrov who asked Simonyan “Do you?” when she asked if they worked for the GRU, not Boshirov.
For someone who is following this story, how hard was it to download a transcript and save it in a folder?
I wouldn’t hire you to write my f***ing shopping list, Andrew Roth! What do you do all day for your salary?
N.
So N, you must be tired finishing your last comment after midnight, and resuming again at 05.20am, as if you’d never left off.
Or was it a quick shift change?
OK, I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about Andrew Roth. But look at how he and the subeditor here use the term “pushback”. “Pushback begins after Skripal poisoning suspect identified as decorated Russian military intelligence officer”. “Russian officials and pro-Kremlin media have pushed back against the results of an online investigation identifying a suspect in the Salisbury novichok poisoning as a Russian military intelligence (GRU) officer.” He just thinks the word is cool.
The psychological warfare in WW3 has been underway for a few years now. PW always starts before the physical conflict and continues after. Some statements by government leaders are worth looking at because they give a window on strategy. Most are of course forgettable cack. What Theresa May said after Boshirov and Petrov were named is in the first category. She talked about pushing back the GRU. Do I have to spell out that that’s actually important? Has the pushback started? What are its prospects? Well the British regime seems to be having bloody big problems doing it. There have been no further expulsions of Russian diplomats or other nationals by any country. And only about two weeks after May’s promise, the World Anti-Doping Agency lifted some of the barriers to the reinstatement of Russia in international athletics. File that as a 🙂 rather than a 🙁 for the GRU.
With Labour dithering over Brexit and the Tories in complete dissary also on Brexit.
The Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, has revealed that just a half an hour delay at UK ports, caused by a hard Brexit could potentially lead to one in ten UK businesses going bankrupt. As firms face massive queues and a vast increase in paperwork and checks to clear customs.
Scotland must vacate this madness on the conclusion of Brexit or face similar consequences. Roll on indyref2.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/16905438.theresa-may-put-on-the-spot-as-investor-steve-schwarzman-calls-britains-future-daunting/
I’m sure you appreciate that, had Scotland voted for independence in 2014, it would have been out of the EU before you could say “Jack Robinson”. Be grateful for the additional few years of membership that the result of the referendum delivered.
But we were promised that if we voted no in 2014 that EU membership would be secured.
Now we’re being dragged off a cliff edge by idiots at Westminster. Time to part ways I think.
It was secured. Membership continued until such time as the UK as a whole decided to leave. Because Scots voted to remain in the UK they were entitled to participate in the EU referendum.
This one’s for you MJ.
Everything we were told would happen if we voted Yes, has happened because we voted No.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DoF–DzW0AEHAV4?format=jpg&name=small
@RoS,
“The Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, has revealed that just a half an hour delay at UK ports, caused by a hard Brexit could potentially lead to one in ten UK businesses going bankrupt”
What a ridiculous statement, the person who wrote it has obviously never travelled from the port of Dover to Calais regularly over the past thirty years, because they would know that delays up to a couple of hours are quite normal.
I’d imagine they were trying not to frighten the horses. A bit late for that if you ask me.
Sturgeon is no strategist and I suspect not really interested in the business of achieving independence should severe political turbulence rock her boat.
The SNP has gone native. It’s happy in its rôle in a devolved, but far from sovereign, set up. Under Sturgeon’s leadership virtue signalling feminist, LGBTQI+ issues have caught the SNP’s attention more than Scotland’s stateless state, constitutional predicament
The SNP has never been an ‘intellectual’s’ party. Essentially it and its membership is middle ground, petit bourgeois and anything but ‘Catalan’ in temperament. It is a lowland Scots party with all the usual belt and braces legalistic hang ups.
Were the SNP told by May that an indyref was out of the question, which she has the authority to do constitutional matters being reserved powers, would one be staged in defiance or would the leadership simply submit?
Corbyn and his leftist British republicanism could attract radicals currently aligning with independence. Identity politics could switch back to old style class rather national and ‘ethnic’ issues.
Brexit was a golden opportunity, now I fear lost. Par for the course for a leadership that disastrously ‘mislaid’ a bunch of Westminster seats in 2017.
It was the SNP’s Stalins that chucked out the republican minded Alex Salmond decades ago, a ghost returned to haunt them.
As in Catalunya we might benefit from more nationalist choice. The pent up frustration with the current meagre goods on offer is beginning to show
“The SNP has gone native.”
“Gone native” has a very specific meaning and its inadmissible here.
See me after class.
“Sturgeon is no strategist”
Is that so? Someone shouldve told Corbyn that, before he decided to pinch the SNP’s policies.
http://www.thenational.scot/news/16905445.labour-accused-of-pinching-policies-from-scottish-government/
Quelle surprise. The constellation of spontaneous groups that made up RIC in 2014 did much of the heavy lifting. Alex had the relaxed, laissez faire attitude that allowed the SNP to surf that wave. I doubt the control freakery of the current leadership clique will tolerate loose association of the official Indy II campaign with RIC. All the more disappointing since Nicola can work a crowd of regular punters in a high street or shopping centre better than anyone.
David Macilwain, for whom I have high regard especially for his investigative work on what’s happening to Syria, has written about Salisbury. He feels he is being shunned as he calls it a criminal deception in his comment on The Lifebot News message board.
Operation Nina – the Novichok Hoax
https://off-guardian.org/2018/09/26/operation-nina-the-novichok-hoax/
Not surprised by this in the least IMHO Nicola and Front line team have 1 last go at this or they are history..
Meanwhile.
Worrying poster on display in the Brussels office of arch #brexiteer
@DanielJHannan
“ignore the Irish”.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nealerichmond/status/1044685302986682370/photo/1
And for those of you who still watch QT, here’s tonights line up.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bbcquestiontime
Personally, I think the SNP should stand in every GE under the independence banner, with a majority of seats being a mandate for declaring independence. Even Thatcher agreed that a majority of MPs within Scotland was sufficient. The SNP are losing their nerve, with an open goal in front of them.
On the flip side, Unionists will be delighted that Craig’s article appears to be dividing the independence side, making it easier for them to rule. Will Scotland ever learn?
Oops, sorry RoS, didn’t mean to reply to your post… the lineup of comedians on Q-T doesn’t encourage me to switch on.
Might get some sense from Lavery. He despises the Nu Labour/Blairite persuasion
.
Mackenzie from Demos – Soppy Libby Demmy. Worked for Ed Davey – arch Zionist supporter (also LDFoI) and then for Cleggover in that ghastly Con LD coalition which, amongst its sins, introduced the Health and Social Care Act, 2012.
Ree-Smog No comment possible.
Liddle will smear Jeremy Corbyn and rubbish Lavery
Hazarika worked for Miliband E and Harperson. So a bit of a failure. All she seems to do these days is to review the ‘papers’ on the news channels. Scribbler for Gideon and Lebedev .https://www.standard.co.uk/author/ayesha-hazarika
About time they cut QT and retired Dimblebore D.
Just a thought.
The Salmond story was leaked to the press by someone in government! Salmond was one of the people who wanted the referendum this autumn. Was this a hatchet job by the SNP to take him off the scene for the next few months. He would have been a stoker for the indy ref 2 debate. Reading what you have written does concern me. I am beginning to lose faith with Sturgeon. Radio silence to all the Yes supporters is to me a mistake. We need to know what the SNP plans are not just occasional press releases to the Tories about Brexit.
I think there will be a lot of disappointment and even anger if nothing is done regards indy ref shortly. We have been patient long enough.
Ah i love the smell of no oxygen of publicity in the morning.
Well given it worked sooooO well on Gerry Adams – I expect to see Craig elected as Scotlands first independent president in just a few years!
Sturgeon’s hand was forced when she went for indy ref 2. I remember her saying she had voices saying go for it and others saying don’t . Personally I think if there had been no pressure she would not have put the bill through. She is one of the wait and see 5 years type of person. She is over caution. That caution might be her undoing as she continues on the wait and see what WM is doing approach.
This is totally disgraceful what does the higherarci of the SNP think it is doing. We the members at this time wish to talk about leaving the UK as fast as possible. Keith Brown will be in Castle Douglas on Saturday, St Ninians Church 1 pm come along and here him defend this I for one will insisted the SNP Independence Leader leads on independence
I think the majority of SNP members like myself want indy ref 2 by March next year. I am fairly confident of that. However it appears the party that I have been a member of all my life doesn’t think that matters. The wider yes movement probably feel exactly the same. The SNP are too busy working out strategies and trying to appeal to the 5 % of waverers, that they are neglecting their core support. We will not vote SNP if they become just another party of government and devolution.
We lost seats at the last GE because the SNP failed to get their core vote out. There was no reason to vote. We already had 56 MPS and it hadn’t changed anything. It was a kind of pointless election. In years to come people will be aghast at how the SNP won 51% of the popular vote at Westminster and nothing happened.