The World this week from Mennies

Saturday 1 February 2020.

Nicola Sturgeon’s speech of surrender. Trump’s awful peace settlement proposals. Leaving the EU.

Well, another week in and a busy one at that and time for a pint in my favorite hostelry, but first a wee look at the week past, and indeed let me start with a subject very dear to my heart and that is the state of the independence movement in Scotland today.

Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon made her much awaited statement on what she intends doing with regards to advancing our march towards independence. To cut a long story short the answer is nothing ,except for the usual marching of the troops up to the top of the hill and down again. There was absolutely nothing in her speech which differed from her approach till now, and that is absolutely nothing, except “wait a little longer” That is what she has been saying for the last 5 years.
Five years ago she said that the people of Scotland would tell her when they wanted another referendum, So they did. They marched in their tens of thousands, they engaged with no voters on social media they did everything they possibly could without an official campaign. They, the people, told her that they were ready.

What did she do? Nothing, except change the peramiters. The “people will let me know when they are ready” slogan was dropped as the people marched. Marches that she was never on, She did however march at the front of her chosen sexual preference groups in Gay rallies and also in anti Brexit rallies. In the elections in 2015, 2016 and 2017 she swept the cause of independence under the carpet, supposedly to set about governing Scotland well, in order to convince Scottish voters, that because it could be proven that Scotland could be governed well under the union it would be able to govern itself well without the Union. I ask you this, if a person voted no because they though that the country would be better off under the union ,then why on earth would they change their mind if it could be proven that the country could actually be governed better under the union.

No, just nonsense, and meanwhile whilst she was trying to convince no voters that they could actually be governed better under the union she was doing nothing to actually convince them that they could be governed better as an independent country. Yes believe it or not, in the 5 years since the last referendum the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon have not even tried to address the issues we lost that last referendum on quite possibly with the exception of the Growth Commission report that the SNP commissioned, which actually made the situation worse by suggesting that we do one of the very things we lost the last referendum on and that was a form of monetary union and worse still that we could be tied to England financially, for up to 10 years. Absolutely crazy.

Throughout this time since Nicola took over as leader of the SNP, she has constantly marched her troops up to he top of the hill and down again with a series of promises generally made in the lead up to an election which were then broken shortly after the election, The classic was the lead up to the General Election we just had. A few weeks before the election there was a surge of talk about another referendum from Nicola and a hastily arranged rally in George square where for the first time since she became leader of the SNP Nicola actually appeared and spoke at a rally, making a strong case for another referendum and indicating that there would be one in 2020. However when it actually came to the election campaign there was no sign of any election material campaigning on independence and instead the campaign was conducted on the basis of fighting against Brexit. So another wards she had done it again, she had sidestepped independence in favor of trying ( as she saw it) to save the Union.

Throughout her time in office, all of her actions could be construed as working to maintain the union, and in doing so she lost seats at every election after the 2015 GE landslide which was won on sentiment after the defeat at the 2014 referendum ., The 2015 landslide was won, not because of Nicola Sturgeon, but despite her. In the GE in December the SNP did manage to take back some of the seats lost in 2017 but that was specifically because she had made such a play on the independence case just before the election, although as I have just said the election was not actually fought on independence but on Brexit which was lost anyway.

We are now faced with the most right wing government in the history of the UK, one with a huge majority and there was actualy no need for it. Believe it or not, it was the SNP who actualy facilitated it by, together with the Lib Dems, agreeing to hold the GE in December , this in turn bounced Jeremy Corbyn into also agreeing and we are now faced with the disaster of a Boris Johnston government of fascists. Johnston was in a cage and Nicola let him out. Once again she saved the union.

So since the GE we have had a series of delays in getting the promised referendum under way, to the stage the other day when again Nicola had run out of delaying tactics and had to make a much needed speech to clarify the situation regarding what people saw as the promise to hold a referendum in 2020, Well the speech was a disaster and gave not a bit of clarification as regards another referendum. There was an avalanche of criticism on social media as people finely realized that they had been duped and this again was the march down the hill experienced so many times in the past. This time it must be clear that the Emperor has no clothes, even to the ardent “Nicola has a secret clever plan” acolytes. My advice to them is stop hitting your head off a brick wall, you will feel better for it.

My hope is that Alex Salmond will be cleared of all charges and the people who set him up will find themselves in court. I have a feeling that there are a number of people including Nicola Sturgeon who will be rather uncomfortable in the run up to the Salmond case and I would not be at all surprised if the case was dropped altogether.
We really need Salmond back in charge, that is our only hope for a proper route to independence but whether or not that happens Nicola Sturgeon and her husband, the chief executive of the SNP, Peter Murrel have to be replaced.

Ok so briefly , the US has made proposals for a peace plan in Palestine and Israel, and they are a disgrace. They basically entrap even further the Palestinian people . Donald Trump is now no more than a puppet of the Zionist Government of Israel. The plan and the drafting of it are a disgrace and is openly and simply a propaganda tool of the Israeli government for instance the word “violence” is used repeatedly but only in connection with the Palestinians, Absolutely no mention of the awful “violence” meted out to the Palestinian people by the Israeli forces. The document is a disgrace and I suggest you look at Craig Murry’s excellent piece on the report.
Yet again the conflicts in the middle east are leading back to the door of Israel.

Now the EU, and a very sad day it was on Friday as we officialy left the Union after 47 years, This is a disaster for Scotland and indeed the rest of the UK but England voted for it by a small margin and so the rest of us were dragged out against our will.
My hope is, that now there are no membership restraints on the remaining countries they will openly show their support for Scotland becoming a member should we become independent. When I cast my mind back to the independence campaign in 2014 the no side made great play of the fact that only remaining in the UK union would guarantee continuing membership of the EU. Well we can see just how hollow a promise that was now, can we?
To all my friends in the EU I am sorry to leave you, I campaigned to stay, please leave the door ajar and a light on, we will be back I promise you.

So to all my friends the world over I wish you a pleasent weekend and I raise my glass to you
Slainte

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