Dear All
They say that the Devil is in the detail, when the Scottish National Party said they wanted independence; most people thought they were serious.
But actions speak louder than words.
What has been done to prepare Scotland for independence?
Nothing!
And in order for the concept to be sellable you need to produce detailed plans, record of achievement and ‘the goods’.
On detailed plans, well we have seen none exist.
On record of achievement, this term of the SNP Government has been dogged by incompetence and bad judgment.
And on ‘the goods’, precious little has been achieve on local government and government reform.
Every test that a reasonable person would expect has been failed, it seems that power, greed and stupidity has gone to Salmond and Sturgeon’s heads.
In their minds, they are the ‘new establishment’ and people will do what they say because they have control of the Parliament and the government.
What they don’t have control of is, the Scottish public.
Recently 23% showed how deep the collapse of support for independence has become, although the true figure hovers in the 30% bracket.
The SNP has produced a timetable for how things move in the unlikely event of a Yes vote.
Adam Tomkins of Glasgow University says that the timescale in the SNP Government paper makes it an astonishing document.
He is right, and like Joan McAlpine and her driving ban, it is a document where the roadmap isn’t a rubber road ride to freedom but more like an episode of ‘the Wacky Races’.
Tomkins says the SNP’s suggested timescale is just irresponsible.
When it comes to law, the SNP tend to fair badly, recent UK Supreme Court judgments bares that out, the SNP come along with an opinion, which any half decent lawyer would drive a coach and horses through it, the UK Supreme Court then has to reject and reset the Law to take account of justice.
Tomkins says that the Salmond and Sturgeon plan is an awesomely fast road to travel down, in fact in speeding terms, it is much more than McAlpine doing 40 mph in a 30 mph zone, it is more like a biker doing 140 mph in a 30 mph.
It makes no sense, but Tomkins says that the reason for speed is that Salmond wants to get everything done for party political gain.
Let’s suspend belief for a second and say Salmond wins indy, he won’t because as everyone knows he doesn’t have a narrative that works in any scenario, and you can see it in Salmond’s face already.
It’s all up for him!
It’s all up for him!
If we think back to the last time Salmond pushed and rushed law through, it was the Offensive behavior at Fitba Act.
Universally condemned for what it is, a piece of shit made up to fit the start of the football season. A Bill that never should have been placed on the books as it is unfit for purpose, people have spoken out about this, and football fans in Glasgow helped ensure no SNP victory for Nicola Sturgeon as she struggles to build a power base in the City of Glasgow.
Tomkins says something interesting when he says that all the parties are currently working on the assumption that, whoever is in government after 2016, there will be a cross-party Unionist majority in the Scottish Parliament.
I would think and have blogged before that the SNP will lose their current majority, their conduct in this parliament will ensure that, many first time MSPs will not be coming back.
When Salmond bows out as a failure, the SNP will try and put Sturgeon in as a ‘fresh broom’ but she will have a track record of failure to deal with, including ‘the big one’.
Nicola Sturgeon blew the independence referendum.
Nicola Sturgeon blew the independence referendum.
Nicola Sturgeon is the independence minister who can’t win independence and less we forget her crew, Team Sturgeon lost Glasgow in near perfect conditions for the SNP against a downtrodden Labour Party.
Although, Tomkins says the SNP do not have much time, the clock is ticking, he doesn’t understand why the SNP ministers wanted to delay their referendum until as late as autumn 2014 when they could have held it 12 or even 18 months earlier than that.
The Scottish National Party doesn’t have enough people who are willing to be activists for them in the long campaign, although numbers increase in the short campaign periods, generally a blip, it isn’t enough because indy has to be done as a ‘special’.
Alex Salmond for First Minister doesn’t work here at indy.
As we see in Westminster elections, the SNP is discarded as a voting choice, many reasons, Labour have embedded themselves as Scotland’s champions in Westminster, SNP MPs don’t play a full role in Westminster, bad policies and poor candidates out of the Salmond and Sturgeon clique who only turn up for elections then disappear from doing activism.
In the short timescale the SNP propose, all the work needed cannot be done, Scotland will need her own armed forces, her own embassies and diplomats, her own security and secret intelligence services, her own Treasury, her own tax collectors, as well as all the apparatus required to set up and operate her own welfare state.
In the military issue, an unofficial poll of Scottish Service personnel came out with the majority not wanting to transfer to the United States of Salmond army.
Reasons vary!
And on logistics, the work hasn't been done or put in place, in setting up various departments and agencies, where are the thousands of public servants will have to be recruited coming from?
Plan for training them?
No!
Where will they be based?
Fuck knows!
In the big picture, nothing exists and in the small details, nothing exists.
That isn’t competent government, this isn’t a serious campaign for independence, it was run as portraying Salmond as the ‘kindly old jolly fat man’ who stands up for Scotland, wee flags, balloons and parroting nonsense of how much better things would be if we had indy, when someone asks a question, you can’t get a coherent answer based in factual evidence.
No indy campaign from my recollection that used the ‘kindly old jolly fat man’ approach has ever been successful.
On the 30 smaller countries that became independent cited and published by the Scottish National Party, none of them fit into the same model as Scotland.
Tomkins is again right to say the SNP claim is wholly disingenuous and cites that most of these instances were examples of decolonisation in Africa; Africa isn’t a beacon of democracy.
And it is correct to highlight that many of these new countries have tiny populations.
The Scottish National Party has been in business for 80 years, at present it is run by a clique for the benefit of the few, the clique has never done the work instead with a taste of power, they are all running off to be ‘celebs’.
In 80 years the SNP never produced a blueprint for Scotland, even now, we still don’t a blueprint, they have no narrative that works, no vision beyond soundbytes and no personnel willing to work for them on a regular basis.
Scotland has turned its back on Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, without their position and status; they won’t get the time of day from Scottish people.
Independence, poll after poll is gone, its stone dead, although this farce will continue as a face saving exercise, the question of who will be the next leader of the SNP is needed to be addressed.
Clearly a party that cannot stand up for the rights and importantly legal rights of its members is doomed to implode. Salmond is seen as the biggest asset of the SNP, in 2014, Alex Salmond for First Minister is going to die a painful death.
Maybe SNP MSP Joan McAlpine can drive the hearse for Alex Salmond’s political funeral into the sunset….. provided she isn’t banned at that time.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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