Indyref 2 Referendum Special, The future doesn’t belong to the SNP, as fresh split in independence movement over referendum date evolves; Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP used the Yes Movement for their own political ends, now it is time for the Yes Movement to recognise that they must step away from Nicola Sturgeon, she is dragging down any future indy bid to save her own skin?

Dear All

About 5 or 6 years ago, I came up with what I thought a possible date for a possible successful independence bid, it was mid 2018.

This date was based on a number of things, first two terms of successful SNP Government, but as we all know now, there weren’t two terms of successful SNP Government. We have had since 2007, a decade of failure to deliver, spin, gimmicks and grievance by the SNP.

There were big issues to address in both local and national government and the SNP weren’t willing to do anything about it, we didn’t become a fair society, we didn’t see wealth distributed, we didn’t see equality and social justice for all.

SNP Government has been a miserable failure, and in the pretend parliament of Holyrood, instead of the big issues being discussed, we, the public were thrown ‘scraps’ by the political parties as they wasted time doing tat.

The SNP bid for independence in 2014 will be remembered for it being a Nationalist ‘campaign of hate’ built on a foundation of lies fed to the public by Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. It saw the BBC subjected to an intimidation campaign, individual reporters like Nick Robinson singled out and targeted. We had even Salmond calling the protests, ‘joyous and peaceful’ as an angry mob laid siege to the BBC HQ in Glasgow.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/09/15/scottish-independence-nick-robinson_n_5821430.html

It was so ‘joyous’ that strangely the SNP leadership and known cult members didn’t take part in it.

If the first term of SNP government was about learning government and how it works, the second term was supposed to be about reform of government, no independence bid can be successful unless the government of the country has a proper blueprint for how it would operate. The SNP didn’t do anything of that nature; everything as the old saying goes was left at their arse. This clearly shows that the SNP aren’t a party of government and don’t understand what they are doing.

The SNP didn’t learn anything in their first term of government as we all now know and they carried that ignorance into their second term as they abandoned their posts to chase the independence dream. The second term of SNP government was all about part time work littered with incompetence and inability to see a job through.

The date of mid 2018, doesn’t exist now as a possible date for a successful Scottish independence bid, just as I blogged that 2014 date would end in failure so would any proposed date in 2018.

2014 wasn’t just a disaster for the motley Yes Scotland mob, it was also a major setback to the SNP because it established the SNP as a bunch of liars who are willing to sell out their fellow countrymen and women on a phoney bogus sham of independence that doesn’t exist.

The SNP want control of power from Westminster to give it automatically away to Brussels, that as many Nationalists and others know, isn’t independence in anyway shape or form.

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon turned the SNP from an independence party to an interdependence party, they don’t believe in Scottish independence at all, they have cheated and abused their own members. Scottish Independence now is really just a full blown anti English campaign, the SNP don’t even hide their racists and bigots anymore, they can stand for public office openly.

The fact that the SNP leadership chose to lie to the public was their downfall then and is going to be their downfall next time, because the same people will be fronting the campaign. It is too late to say to the public, ‘we won’t lie’ this time and ‘sorry’ isn’t going to cut it.

It isn’t surprising that the Yes side even before a date is proposed are already involved in a fresh split, Colin Fox was a ‘useful idiot’ among many useful idiots who jumped on the SNP bandwagon of Yes Scotland. I assumed he thought that this would help his party’s fortunes. The SSP effectively died after the Tommy Sheridan Affair, they won the battle in the Court, but Sheridan won the war, Sheridan wiped them out as a political force for all time. The SSP seeing that they were unelected joined with a load of middle class people to attempt to pass themselves off as a ‘workers party’ called RISE! The press covered RISE as the ‘new left’ and even gave them airtime but the working class people of Scotland saw through this poor middle class act which was in incredibly bad taste.

One of the faces of RISE was Cat Boyd, a trendy lefty whose mother was a head teacher with a CBE, nothing in common with real working class people. In January 2016, RISE announced that they had selected Boyd as a candidate for the Scottish Parliament election. She was on their regional list for Glasgow. She lost the election and RISE did not gain any seats nationally, polling just 1% in Glasgow. And if there is such a thing as sweet karma, RISE came eighth behind Sheridan's Solidarity movement.

I don’t hold any hope that someone like Colin Fox will be making it back into front line politics at Holyrood with his RISE alliance with people like Cat Boyd; to me they are just caricatures. One thing which Fox does get right gambling that there will a backlash against Brexit and that this would translate into a win for Yes side next time is pure pie in the sky. Most people really don’t understand the difference between the EU and Europe, and there is a hell of a lot, people form the UK wouldn’t be banned from European countries, and it is doubtful that they will need a visa to go there. The UK has visa free travel with about 175 countries around the World, the EU is made up of 27 Member States plus the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_British_citizens

So, no one’s holiday is in danger which is probably the main concern!

Gambling on Brexit is a loser but it shows how desperate the SNP are that they wrongly think there is some emotional attachment to EU as a political organisation, it is too remote.

Nicola Sturgeon has had her bluff called, she needs to name the date to Westminster, despite the lack of public support for a new vote, as to the Herald story of 50/50, this to me is bogus nonsense, the majority of Scots don’t want another referendum taking place, not after the way the last one was conducted by the SNP. As Fox said the Yes movement did not need “mindless cheerleader support” for Sturgeon.

Here is something which you need to think about and remember:

‘THE FUTURE DOESN'T BELONG TO THE SNP!’

Fox isn’t alone in not wanting a vote too soon, former SNP leader Gordon Wilson, former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars and former SNP Justice Secretary Kenneth MacAskill have pinned their colours to the mast and said that a premature independence vote will end in failure.

The Yes Movement know that to go too soon risks killing independence stone dead, and Sturgeon seems to be breaking that consensus, actually the SNP weren’t really in a consensus in the first place, they were just using people for their own political gain.

One thing that the Yes Movement needs to consider is a campaign with the SNP outside the tent. If Sturgeon’s plan goes ahead it will be “at odds with what the broad based Yes movement previously agreed”, which was only to call a referendum after a sustained poll lead. If they come out and publicly not back Nicola Sturgeon’s bid and she goes ahead, it will only be her and probably the Scottish Greens, this could kill off two birds with one stone politically and open up opportunities for other parties to win seats at Holyrood.

Fox also said:

“Losing a second referendum would be the death knell for our cause… The next referendum will be far more difficult to win than the last one.”

He added:

“The SNP leader is about to ditch that consensus and gamble a section of Scotland’s middle class, who refuse to accept the EU vote, will back independence to stop Brexit. Her gamble is one which puts the issue of EU membership ahead of independence. Sturgeon has presented the myth that the EU is some Garden of Eden where privileges are bestowed on Scotland from on high by some guardian angel in Brussels when it is in fact an anti-democratic bureaucracy entirely in the grip of a neoliberal corporate elite.”

So, there you have it, who will people that believe in Scottish independence follow, the wider Yes Movement as a broad church or do they stick with Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP who are becoming increasingly irrelevant and have painted themselves into a corner of their own making?

If Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t get the wider Yes Movement on board and that is looking increasingly likely at present, who wants to fight a campaign, spent vast amounts of money, resources and thousands of hours of manpower on a flawed campaign with zero chance of success, where the logic in that?

An early campaign is about one thing and one thing only, Nicola Sturgeon attempting to hang onto her job as SNP leader, in business, the smart play is to walk away from a failing business when the market is unwilling to support it, seemly Nicola Sturgeon is too stupid to understand that concept.

The Yes Movement need to stand back and let Sturgeon fail, withdrawal of support doesn’t harm their future prospects but it kills her and the SNP creating a huge political vacuum in Scotland to be filled.

Finally, Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are pinning their political hopes on their proposals to keep Scotland in the single market citing protecting Scotland's vital national interests and keeping free movement of people which they say is needed to grow the economy.

It’s a lie!

Measures already exist in the UK to give flexibility in the current immigration system to get Scotland the skilled people it needs, Robert Goodwill, the Immigration Minister, said there is a Scotland-only Shortage Occupation List (SOL) for employers wanting to bring in the skilled personnel they need from outside the European Economic Area.

So, there is no need for access to the single market to get skilled Labour, a mechanism already issues, the SNP are either being stupid or deceitful to the people of Scotland, I think you can guess where I sit on this issue.

The SNP leadership have already started lying in preparation for indyref 2, the SNP are ‘too poor, too stupid and too wee’ to lead Scotland to independence.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University