“Cuckoo in the nest”, unpopular Nicola Sturgeon is like a rotting vile cancer festering away in the political body of the Scottish National Party, the longer she remains as leader the more seats the SNP will lose at Holyrood and Westminster, she is responsible for the SNP’s worst general election reversal in almost 40 years

Dear All

Scotland’s unpopular SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is saying that she is postponing a second independence vote until after Brexit. Firstly, she can say what she likes but what she can’t do is guarantee that vote will take place because Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t have that authority.

In order for a second independence vote to be allowed, there needs to be a Section 30 order granted at Westminster by the Conservative Government. When Theresa May slapped down Sturgeon’s request for a second indyref by saying ‘not now’, the ball was kicked right into the long grass for about 5 years minimum.

It is highly unlikely that there will be a vote until 2021 and with the Unionist parties making an impact at Westminster and reducing the SNP to 35 seats, Holyrood isn’t looking like there will be an SNP majority, or even an SNP/Green majority.

We could be looking at a hung parliament at Holyrood!

Of course, the Scottish Conservatives are of the mindset that they could win the parliament next time round, this is more wishful thinking at present than based on cold hard facts. The Conservatives in Scotland had a great revival and outstanding wins it has to be said, but that doesn’t mean, the road to Holyrood is a canter for them. You could see their vision as more hope than reality based, this is due to resources or to be more pointed lack of resources.

The Conservatives don’t have a big enough and experienced activist base to realistically mount that challenge. In the recent election, the Conservatives used overkill to win the East Renfrewshire seat. Paul Masterton, the winner got 21,496 votes to take the seat, the SNP managed 16, 784, and Labour trailed in third place with 14, 346. The percentage gain was plus 18 for the Conservatives but the ratio of votes to activists wasn’t impressive. It was a good campaign, well organised operationally, people were very positive but I suspect that the East Renfrewshire Conservatives after the joy of the win would be sitting down to ask themselves some serious questions.

If you read the blog on a regular basis, you will know that I have often mentioned the fact that the SNP is lacking in substance, it isn’t a secret, there is a lack of substance and of course talent as well. Nicola Sturgeon has harmed the SNP by putting “short-term PR gains” ahead of its long-term strategic goals, the same mindset was used under the Salmond era where ‘showmanship’ was seen as the band aid to cover the cracks and failures. But failure has a way of coming back to haunt you, you can’t fool, the people all of the time, and now that many people have seen through Nicola Sturgeon like a sheet of glass, they aren’t impressed, so much so that they are walking away and taking their votes to put them somewhere else.

Jim Sillars, the former SNP deputy leader is basically saying what I have said in the past, Sturgeon should stop “grandstanding” and doing the PR gimmicks. After the 56 SNP MPs were elected in 2015, there was a chance of taking a new approach towards Westminster but grudge and grievance won the day because the SNP don’t and won’t work consensually with others.

The SNP leadership which includes the cult members don’t know how to work with people, they are poor leaders. The upshot of their petty and nasty attitude is that they have lost any opportunity to get round the table and work consensually to secure more powers for Holyrood.

If there is a price for stupidity the SNP leadership are fully paid up and taking double rations. Nicola Sturgeon was wrong to back the Remain campaign in Brexit, wrong to demand separate deal for Scotland, wrong to demand access to the single market, in fact you would be hard pushed to find anything this vacuous inept woman has gotten right. Back when I was a guest on the Gordon Brewer Big Debate, I floated the idea of the devolved governments getting a role in Brexit, this idea was based on everyone getting onboard with the concept of unity and we are leaving.

Nicola Sturgeon by her stupidity killed that idea stone dead, as Sillars said the UK would be “daft” to give the SNP government a seat in Brexit talks, as it had shown itself to be a “potential cuckoo in the nest”.

Remember my earlier post on Sturgeon the grass?

Everyone eventually comes around to the George Laird view.

What is laughable is that Nicola Sturgeon still hasn’t woken up to the fact, there needs to be a change of leader for the SNP to move forward. Nicola Sturgeon is the cuckoo in the nest at the SNP, whether she wants to believe it or not. Scotland has moved passed the SNP as seen by the SNP’s worst general election reversal in almost 40 years.

Nicola Sturgeon is finding out that since Alex Salmond stepped down that she isn’t a leader of men, the Salmond legacy of building up the vote has been eroded by her failures in government, not just on vision but also to deliver a better Scotland.

Let’s face a shitty baby box, are you impressed?

The idea of a second referendum has led to a backlash against her referendum plan, she has made herself toxic. The classic example of why Sturgeon has no future as SNP leader can be summed up by Jim Sillars:

He wrote:

“Making Scotland Brussels’ insider friend may have pleased many of my fellow party members, but meant that when hard confidential negotiations get underway, the UK Government would be daft to invite a potential Brussels cuckoo in the next. A short term tactic which played well in Brussels, fell flat in London, which is where Scotland really needs leverage. Sadly, short term PR gains leading to longer term strategic losses have been a marked feature of the Sturgeon leadership. Indyref2 was the classic example.”

Although there are lots of key issues flagged up, the important one to home into is that “strategic losses have been a marked feature of the Sturgeon leadership”.

George Laird right again!

The threaten by the SNP over Brexit legislation by withholding a legislative consent motion (LCM) at Holyrood would also be “a serious mistake” but doing the wrong thing is nothing new to Nicola Sturgeon who seems driven by cheap stunts in order to make her appear likeable.

The fact is that Nicola Sturgeon is a rather nasty horrible person, the comedy show that painted her as a ‘horrible cow’ certainly made many a Scot laugh but the humour is that the writers have grasped the essence of a career built round being an angry wee Nat. When you see a happy Nicola Sturgeon for the cameras behind the mask is a despicable wee individual, not a people person, the eyes don’t lie.

Go online and look at her pictures, eyes brimming with hate as she looks into countless cameras at Holyrood.

The SNP lost 21 of the 56 seats it won in 2015 and its vote share fell from 50 to 37 per cent, Sturgeon and her nasty wee clique has destroyed all the previous work, in Glasgow, every seat held by the SNP at Westminster is a marginal now. The shine has come off the Nationalists and some people sitting on less than a hundred votes will be hope for a 5 year parliament to attempt to turn round the ‘problem’ that Sturgeon created.

One thing that the SNP have to wrap their heads around is that just as Salmond was toast on the morning of the 19^th September, so was Nicola Sturgeon on the morning of the 9^th June 2017.

Finally, the myth that Nicola Sturgeon is some kind of superwoman and politician is exactly that, hyped up by the press and gimmicks, Sturgeon is sticking by her rationale for a second referendum, saying Brexit, in whatever form, would be deeply damaging to Scotland. If I was an MP and MSP in the Scottish National Party, I would want to know where the ‘men in grey suits’ are because Sturgeon is about to cost the SNP many seats at future elections.

There comes a time when you have got to go, Nicola Sturgeon has reached that point!

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University