Nicola Sturgeon’s political train wreck: House of Commons endorsed the Article 50 legislation by 498 votes to 114, the feeble 56 SNP MPs find themselves on the wrong side of history as Brexit moves forward, the pressure is on Sturgeon as Tories say they will block second Scottish independence referendum, the Nationalist train is out of steam, its all gone now!

Dear All

Think back to 2014, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon have just lost the Scottish independence referendum, the day after there is a new Scotland. The Scotland before the 19^th September had a different landscape to the one evolving.

Not long after the vote, a Trident submarine came sailing up the Clyde and it was trailed in the media, the significance of the vessel wasn’t it was sailing happily along, it was the Scotland was safe within the United Kingdom.

As we know, Scotland was to further change over Brexit, a million Scots voted to leave the EU, and as it was pointed out to me, this was more than voted for the SNP to be elected. As we all know that the failure of the SNP was being heavily involved in two referendums and losing each of them.

Scotland’s political landscape was to yet again change after the June 2016 vote, but the crucial thing was the SNP didn’t adapt to the change, under inept Nicola Sturgeon, the dogma continued on Scottish independence and on Brexit.

Where are we at now, well MPs voted by 494 to 114 to back the Brexit bill in the House of Commons last night, the number isn’t important, it was always going to go through, the fact that all the SNP MPs were on the wrong side of the debate is. The SNP have made themselves completely irrelevant which shows how disastrous they are at getting on with people down the road.

And getting on with people down the road is important, the bottom line is this, things are moving on and as such talks are taking place on trade deals with Westminster and other global players. When Westminster gets all its ducks lined up in a row, they will cut loose from the EU, so the question is this, why aren’t the Scots getting a place at the table as the new trade deal talks are in progress?

Why isn’t their a place for Scottish representation?

It is because the people at Westminster know as people know in Scotland that you cannot work with the belligerent SNP leadership. A by-product of Brexit is the threat of a second Scottish independence referendum. It may surprise you but Westminster is remarkably non-phased by the prospect, so much so that a blog post appeared on Conservative Home.

http://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2017/02/how-far-should-we-go-to-defend-the-union-take-our-monthly-survey.html

I read into this that the Conservatives are preparing for a second independence referendum in Scotland, of course it is doubtful that second time round there will be a Better Together setup, the last one didn’t function well at all on the ground. The reason for this was the organisation was staffed by certain Labour people who were incompetent and also Scottish Labour didn’t back the organisation properly instead they ran a parallel campaign which meant that neither of those two campaigns were well staffed with volunteers. If a second referendum is fought in Scotland, then they is only one organisation which at present ticks the boxes as having the nucleus of a functioning campaign.

Scotland in Union!

Scotland in Union maybe the official organisation recognised the Electoral Commission for the purposes of running the Pro UK campaign. They still have to get their ground operation further developed but that will come in time as they get the feel of campaigning and start getting volunteers out.

http://www.scotlandinunion.co.uk/

At present we back in 2012 mentally, the start of the ‘phoney’ war, something which we are all aware of and how it unfolded over time, we aren’t even at the declaration of a second date. I would say we are at the time prior to that where a lot of shouting is coming from the SNP.

But it isn’t all plain sailing, the Tories aren’t in any rush, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP have made themselves irrelevant which is why in this ‘phoney’ war, the Tories will block Nicola Sturgeon's bid for second independence referendum. This means that Sturgeon will be forced to go to the polls as she brings down the Scottish Government. The Tories would like Brexit out of the way, some people talk about a vote in 2018/19 but Westminster may decide that 2020 suits their purposes better. Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary said that Nicola Sturgeon did not have a mandate to stage another vote on Scotland’s future and Westminster had no intention of helping her hold one.

This brings us back to what I mentioned earlier about the SNP not being able to get on with people. Although Fallon is the defence Sec, the final word rests with the Prime Minister but when asked on indyref 2 he said:

“No, forget it. The respect agenda is two-way. She (Sturgeon) is constantly asking us to respect the SNP Government but she has to respect the decision of Scotland to stay inside the UK in 2014 and the decision of the UK to leave the EU. Respect works two ways.”

Notice the use of the word, ‘She’, no warmth there at all, and no goodwill.

I have to say if the shop-soiled white hope of Dreghorn does call for a second vote and gets rebuffed, the humiliation would be delicious, where would she go from there, well, the collapse of the Scottish Government and a ballot to attempt to get an outright majority.

To get the mandate, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP need an outright majority in their own right, no majority at the Holyrood parliament would do, and I doubt that Sturgeon is up for a coalition with the Scottish Greens.

The SNP don’t play well with others!  

Nicola Sturgeon says it would be “inconceivable” the UK Government would refuse her a second vote…… watch this space as Westminster undermines her.

The future is in flux but one thing that needs to happen is that the Unionist parties need to get their act together. The Scottish Labour Party under Kezia Dugdale is in a state of collapse, voters, activists and donors have abandoned them. Conservatives haven’t made the breakthrough, their success is based on Labour’s failure, the Lib Dems are just a rump of a party almost as meaningless as the SSP or under its new guise Rise, Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity is a one trick pony, and the Scottish Greens are reduced to being proxies of the SNP.

The main thing in Scotland is the political vacuum which flags up a pressing need for a new centre right Nationalist party to attempt to kick start democracy in Scotland.

Back in the day, I mentioned to Professor Adam Tomkins who was in Better Together, now an MSP, that he should archive all the Better Together information for future reference, it is increasingly looking likely he might have need of it in the future.

If it comes to pass as I suspect, then of course I will be doing a post on George Laird right again, just a matter of sitting back, getting comfortable and watching the car crash happen.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University