Month: November 2016

A predictable response Tony, but that does not make it wrong.

You confuse my criticism of the SNP with the Scottish government. In the main my issue is with the SNP as a party, a party whose reason for existence is to gain independence. I feel they conflate this reason to exist with an idea that a government can govern for everyone. That is an intrinsic impossibility.
A government must take into consideration all areas of the society they have been given the remit to govern but always accounting for the mandate they have been given by the electorate.
I feel that as the SNP have been known as the party of independence for many years then it is reasonable to assume that an overwhelming majority of the people who voted for them, did so in the full knowledge that the SNP would pursue a policy that would lead to independence.
I feel that they (the SNP) have been seduced by the power they have been given by the electorate and have, instead of putting their efforts into planning for independence, have settled into being part of the establishment. They have been riding on the crest of a wave, powered initially by the surge in support, engendered by the widespread disappointment which followed the result of the independence referendum.

From the referendum they have been the beneficiaries of circumstance and I feel that much of this mana from heaven has been wasted.
In two elections , Westminster and the recent Scottish elections, they have singularly failed to put the very basic road map to independence in place by failing to declare the intention to wrest control of the ability to hold and organize referendums from Westminster to Holyrood into either manifesto and you can now see the wasted opportunity with this latest action to proceed with a “draft piece of legislation” to allow a referendum to be passed through the “Scottish parliament” on purely the basis of a pro-independence mixed party majority in Holyrood and a mere mention of a possible move towards a referendum in the manifesto of the Scottish elections.

They have been dangling carrots for the last two years which is to say the least demeaning to the electorate and their party members. They have wasted two years in failing to adress the issues we lost the last referendum on. In fact I have it on good authority that they don’t even know what the reasons were.
The Scottish elections were a disaster for their own making, for many reasons among which was the two votes for the SNP instead of an organized first vote for SNP and a second vote for a “suggested” alternative pro-independence party. This resulted in the Tories gaining more than double their representation in the parliament and the SNP losing 6 seats along with a derisory increase in voter representation of something like 1.2% compared to 12.75% in the previous elections in 2011 and this without the upsurge in popularity as previously described.

OK that was in the past but to me the thing that capped it all was the commitment to hold a referendum if Scotland was to be torn out of the EU when we voted to remain but the rest of the UK voted to leave.
The day after the EU referendum will go down as the worst lost opportunity ever in politics when Theresa May hotfooted it up to Scotland and mugged Nicola into believing that she would have a veto over negotiations regarding pursuing exit from the EU. Well we all know what happened to that now do we?
The “ going for a referendum if Scotland voted remain “ to a possible referendum if we couldn’t by some means be part of the “single market” was a subtlety that quite a lot of people missed but it was a landmark change in what had been offered previously

Then there was the party conference where Nicola gave a speech which could have been seen as the SNP making their remit to keep us in both the EU and the UK, followed by Angus Robertson making it abundantly clear that as long as we could in some way still be part of “the single market “there would be no need for a referendum. At a stroke he took away the reason for the SNP’s existence. This was followed by John Swinney making it clear that if a referendum was to happen then we could conceivably be campaigning for a common currency. This made plain that he was on a completely different planet from the rest of us.

The SNP are in the process of the largest, painting one’s self into a corner exercise in the history of the planet. They have, either by incompetence or design hung the jacket of independence on a very shaky hook. They have corralled the hopes of the “faithful” into a very narrow channel, that of non-admittance to the single market, which is not going to happen.

So for the avoidance of doubt here is what in all probability will happen? The government will appeal the recent judgement against them and will fail. There will be a general election. A new Tory government will be formed and they will take the question of whether the EU referendum should be recognized to parliament. There will be an amendment proposing another referendum which will be passed. There will be a referendum at which the British people, realizing that they had been mugged the first time will vote to remain. Parliament will recognize the decision.

THEREFORE AS PER THE SNP’S STRATAGY AND ANGUS ROBERTSONS PRONOUNCEMENT THERE WILL NOT BE ANOTHER INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM AND WE ARE STUFFED

I could go on for hours enumerating the reasons I have extreme concerns as to the commitment and abilities of the SNP . You rightly say that I have had issues with the Dundee SNP. I will not go into that here as there is a possibility that issues surrounding this could be brought to court which will, if found necessary will be done at a time of my choosing. You will note that there has been dissatisfaction throughout the Dundee SNP leading to three councilors deciding not to put themselves up for re-election next May and one of the parliamentary political managers being sacked. A person who had a hand in the vilification I was subject to whilst organizing a road map to independence rally.

You rightly highlight that I do not have access to the contracts signed in connection with the shipping to be built on the Clyde, I am however not stupid and I fully realize that anyone who does not realize that this latest announcement is a built in threat of withdrawal of these contracts to be used in the event of another referendum, IS stupid, and that was the subject of my comment. Which was if you remember that of the two parties’ one of them is not letting the grass grow under their feet and it is not the SNP.

As for my definition of campaigning I attach a blog I did a couple of days before the election in May, the day after I walked out of a meeting that Nicola was addressing after the schedule regarding the asking of questions was hastily rearranged by the previously mentioned political manager who has been sacked from his position, in order that I could not ask the question that I had intended asking. There is an attachment in this blog to my letter of resignation which covers the campaigning aspect of your comment and as it so happens the blog covers the question I wished to ask, which very pertinent to what I have said previously in this answer.

As for your comment that the SNP are at the moment the best bet we have for independence, I would agree and in any of my blogs or postings you will not find one contradiction of that. In assessing the abilities of the SNP , people continually confuse them with the Scottish Government. However the difference is this. The SNP as the largest part of the Scottish government do a good job and that is what we pay them for but they have at their disposal an army of advisors, Lawyers, engineers, planners etc,etc. Whereas the SNP as a political party have only the politicians, the majority of whom have never even ran a business let alone a country, in their life’s and therein lies the problem. The SNP party’s strategic abilities leave a hell of a lot to be desired.

My commitment to independence is unquestionable, my opinion of the road we are at present taking is that, that is questionable. I hear time and time again that there is a plan, this from people who have no way of knowing whether there is a plan or not. They have been saying this for over two years. One thing is sure and that is that over these two years there has not been a plan. I keep getting this “Nicola is keeping her cards close to her chest and not telling anyone of them “ Is this the same Nicola who has said at least 50 times that the British government should be telling everyone their plans for Brexit? Is it a case then of one rule for the SNP and another for everyone else

As I said in one of my blogs “The problem with having blind faith is that one day you might wake up blind”

A letter to Nicola