Monday, August 27, 2012

The boat is sailing on Alex Salmond’s independence dream, anti NATO SNP CND group shows why people have no faith in party to defend Scotland














Dear All

In October we will see if stupidity in the Scottish National Party can be replaced by commonsense.

It’s a hard task because for the last 30 years the SNP has been a party having to scavenge for support and people to work for it.

So; it’s had to rely on an odd mix of people with a common thread, anti British establishment and its entire works!

Defending a nation is quite beyond the capabilities of some in the Scottish National Party as is honouring the military covenant to Scottish troops.

It is no surprise to me that there is a bid to stop a change to the SNP's anti-Nato policy.

Or who is involved in it.

The anti’s say they want to start a "grassroots movement" to defy Alex Salmond and the party leadership.

There are many reasons why a "grassroots movement” to oppose Salmond should be started but NATO isn’t one of them.

The current Scottish National Party leadership don’t believe in fairness, equality and social justice as I know from my personal experience.

I see the SNP leadership as anti working class and anti Glaswegian, again my personal experience.

To boost their chances at conference, the anti’s held a meeting of the Nationalists' Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament group in Glasgow.

The funny thing is that they believe their remit is to "educate" SNP members.

In that spirit they laid out what the proposed U-turn in policy could mean for the party and to its chances of securing a "yes" vote in the Scottish referendum on independence in 2014.

So, here is some education for the idiots!

In every Westminster General election, the Scottish National Party has had its political cunt kicked in by the public because the party isn’t seen as viable.

Every Westminster election!

Gareth Finn, SNP CND group convener, said the turnout at the seminar about 65 people, including MSPs John Finnie, Dave Thompson, Jean Urquhart, Sandra White and John Wilson was impressive.

65 people is impressive out of a circa 20,000 membership?

I have met Gareth Finn, he is a republican and as far as I am concerned just a little shit of a human being, a particularly unimpressive little man who came across to me as having a massive chip on his shoulder.

Finn said:

"The next step is for members to go back to their SNP branches with that information and pass it around. We want to expand the debate to a grassroots movement rather than just discussing it in the hierarchy of the party."

He added:

"The main issue is that Nato is a nuclear alliance and it doesn't fit in with our vision for Scotland. We are a prosperous and outward-looking country, I don't see why we need to be part of the alliance because I don't see any threat to Scotland. It's a challenge for those seeking to change party policy to inform us of where they see these threats coming from."

So speaks the greatest military strategist in nationalism, the view being particularly clear from Clydebank and of course, less we forget, Finn has probably seen war movies in his youth and therefore is probably able to analyse threats.

Unfortunately, the threats in the world are global and beyond his mental capabilities as a big chip small man republican.

In this blog I theme on a lack of talent in the Scottish National Party, and so far ten of the SNP's 67 MSPs have so far come out against the leadership's proposal.

Ten backward looking people holding MSP positions who aren’t willing to stand up for Scottish Soldiers, in a recent poll Scottish service personnel by a clear majority declared not to be in favour of joining the army of an independent Scotland.

And who can blame them when so many in the Scottish National Party are declaring they will fail to do everything to protect them from harm’s way.

Dave Thompson, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, said:

"We're better with our current policy because it's the right policy. You would need to ask Angus whether he thinks his policy is the right policy or is he purely following opinion polls that's not for me to say. He's got to come up with sound reasons."

How about every Westminster election result telling the SNP they aren’t trusted to defend our nation!

Many people see the sudden conversion to NATO as opportunism by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, and who can blame them.

The anti’s have been busy and have passed round a briefing paper, Nationalist CND argue that changing policy could lose the SNP support and did not guarantee extra votes for independence.

It argued:

"It confuses the strategy and makes the SNP look cynical and lacking in moral courage. It alienates almost all active supporters of independence outside the SNP and will cause more conflict within the Yes campaign. It removes all differentiation between the SNP and the other parties. It does nothing to counter the media onslaught from those that oppose independence. In fact, tactically and strategically, it is hard to see what meaningful benefit it is meant to bring."
Alex Salmond should take the opportunity to wind down the independence or get into an argument with Westminster over wording and pull the referendum; he really does have to educate the Scottish National Party.

He could start with the University of Strathclyde poll carried out in May, which found 52% of SNP members surveyed wanted to remain in NATO.

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, said:

"The ridiculed NATO stance is only one small element of SNP defence policy that is exceptionally weak."

Independence is looking increasingly remote as five independence polls show that momentum has stalled and is now going backwards; add to that bad decisions by Alex Salmond’s government, lack of a direction and policies coupled with arrogance that their own stupidity somehow equates to intelligence and 2014 will see everything crash down around their ears.

If NATO isn’t pushed through then it will be one more torpedo into the independence campaign, Scotland isn’t ready, the people aren’t ready and the Scottish National Party isn’t ready for independence.

But it doesn’t stop the party doing the changes which are so needed, 30 years of getting it wrong on NATO equals 30 years of not been seen as credible for Westminster. This change is long overdue and it isn’t the only thing wrong with Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon’s brand of nationalism.

The chickens are now coming home to roost for the SNP.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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