Month: September 2020

Six years ago today we went to the polls in the independence referendum. We in the Yes bus Team had worked non-stop for months in and around Dundee campaigning for independence. We achieved a lot, as did the other grassroots groups.
The SNP were somewhat less than effective as the only time we saw them in the City square was when the cameras and press where there. As soon as the press left then so did they. SNP politicians had an occasional stall in the Murrygate which they manned for an hour or two.

Dundee returned the highest percentage of yes votes in the country but sadly it was not enough and we lost the referendum by 10 points.
I wanted to continue the campaign at a lower level to inform and correct the mistakes we had made during the campaign. I approached the SNP with this in mind and asked them what the plan now was. I received a blank look and “what plan” Yes believe it or not there was no plan B, no strategy for a continuance along the road to independence.

Shortly after the referendum, Nicola sturgeon was made leader and things became a lot worse with the mere mention of the word independence expunged from all discussion among the faithful, and more especially SNP politicians.

An instance of this was when the Yes bus team were pressured by the SNP via Chris Law, to postpone a rally we had organised for the week before the 2015 Westminster general election. The reason given was that independence was to be swept under the carpet, and incredibly a statement was made and attributed to Stewart Hosie by Chris Law that ” we cant have saltires and yes posters being waved around the City Square the week before a general election” Yes believe it or not that was the position of the SNP only a few months after the referendum.

Have things changed? No, they haven’t, in fact, they have gotten a lot worse. We are now 6 years, from the last referendum and during the reign of Nicola Surgeon all that has happened is that there has been a whole stock of mandates built up, generally as carrots, offered to the faithful in the run up to elections, together with countless prime opportunities presented by a dysfunctional Tory party of government and what have we today? We have Nicola Sturgeon once again asking for another mandate to go cap in hand to a government ran by despots and the breaker of international treaties to politely ask them yet again to grant a completely unnecessary section 30 which allows a derogation of a section of the Scotland act.
I cannot for the life of me think of anything quite so illogical as that course of action.

It would appear that events are taking place that will hopefully result in the removal of both Nicola Sturgeon and her husband Peter Murrel, the chief executive of the SNP. As a result of their complicity in the setting up of Alex Salmond, an action which could have seen him sent to prison for a considerable time, quite possibly for the rest of his life.

I feel that the process to investigate the involvement of the leadership of the SNP in this extremely distasteful issue is only just began, and from my own knowledge there is much more to come, some of it restricted at present by contempt of court issues surrounding the trial of Alex Salmond.

There is a darkness at the heart of the SNP and it revolves around the leadership and its inner coterie of sycophant’s and manipulators.

There is a house of cards teetering on the verge of collapse with the Joker at the heart of its imminent demise ,

The question is, just how much damage is she going to inflict on her way down?

This is a blog I did in 2017, like this week, where Nicola Sturgeon came out with yet another initiative for cooperating with the wider grassroots groups. It was another carrot, like the ones that had come before it and the many that came after it. This latest carrot is, I fear just another lie like the big one she told a couple of weeks before the last Westminster election when she hastily arranged the rally in George square to tell people that this election was to be all about independence. Then in the days that followed, it became very clear that people had been duped when the election material was produced without a single mention of independence and instead, a big picture of a Bus with stop Brexit all over it. I fear these latest promises will go the same way, as I simply do not trust her.

https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/bobsblog.scot/2591

Kenny McCaskill wrote a good article today on the Wings over Scotland site, in which he promoted the idea of the grass roots groups taking the initiative. I have a feeling he is trying to make provision for a distinct lack of cooperation from the leadership of the SNP in any forthcoming campaign.

I would go further than that in as much as I expect downright obstruction from the leadership of the SNP in much the same way as they are now trying to thwart the attempts of Martin Keatings from ascertaining whether the Scottish people have to be bound by the section 30 fallacy used by Nicola sturgeon to hold back the independence cause. The Scottish Government/ Nicola Sturgeon actually, stated that Martin Keatings was attempting to “stand in the shoes of politicians” elected for that propose. My God, surely it is the place of politicians to stand in the shoes of the people who elected them. It is difficult to imagine a more disgraceful display of arrogance as that.

Anyway, to get back to Kenny’s article. Without a central force guiding at arms length, I don’t think it would work. I know Kenny is advocating Some sort of a committee made up of grass roots representatives but I know how that would and up and that would be like rats in a barrel.

To give you an idea of why I think like that ,I would go back to the 2014 referendum campaign. In the run up to this I had the idea of setting up the Yes Bus, Scotland’s dragon for independence. A double decker built in Scotland by Alexander Dennis for the far east market, Hence the type name, Dragon. It started its working life in Hong Kong before moving to Kenya, two countries who gained their independence from the UK.

It came to our fleet from Manchester to service a contract for the High School of Dundee, the forerunner of which was where William Wallace was educated.

So it had some history and I had the idea to make it available to any grass roots group in Dundee or surrounding area to campaign ,( and this is the important bit) in their own way , towards their own support and in their own area of Dundee.

Now Dundee was always a very radical city with a plethora of differing political activists and I realized that if any one tried to bring them together, it would be a disaster. So the Yes bus was used by many differing groups to campaign in their own manner and we also set up the Yes Bus team which was made up of a wide variety of people with a wide verity of political views who were there voluntary to campaign for a common goal.

Dundee turned out the highest percentage of yes votes in Scotland because all the groups did their own thing and we all cooperated on the way, apart from, I might say the SNP who were somewhat difficult to prise campaigning material from despite the fact that it had all been paid from through Yes Scotland, but that is another story.

So after a rather long winded explanation here is what I suggest.

As for the central leadership issue I think Alex Salmond would be ideal . He is a true leader and a committed patriot. I do not think there is any question that he would be other than a perfect leader for another campaign.

I fear however that history will repeat itself, in as much as all of our great historical figures such as Wallace and Bruce had first to defeat the Scots before they turned their attention to the auld enemy, the English.

I fear that we have an enemy within our very own ranks and that is the Sturgeon/ Murrel family. I think they will put every obstacle in the way of another referendum or alternative way of achieving our aim. They have done it in the past and they are still at it.

We are once again on the cusp of another prime opportunity to gain independence and after 6 years we have not even addressed the failures of the last referendum, such as currency and pensions and that is a prime example of one of the obstacles put in our way. The Andrew Wilson Growth Commission. Almost two years late ( another delay) and when it came out it suggested implementing one of the main failures of the 2014 campaign, tying Scotland to England with a currency union Absolutely unbelievable. It is also clear that Andrew Wilson and Nicola Sturgeon have not a clue of the implications of the laughably GERS figures, probably deliberately.

Very shortly it will become apparent , even to the most ardent Sturgonite that she has set up Alex Salmon. Evidence to be presented to the Holyrood enquiry into the lead up to the court case Salmond brought against the Scottish Government in a judicial review will show that the change of rules to enable the Scottish government to bring retrospective complaints against ministers was in fact cooked up between Leslie Evens and Nicola Sturgeon and not by Westminster as many of Sturgeons acolytes tried to believe as a means of comforting themselves. To make matters worse the Westminster government advised against it.

So there you are, the grubby truth is beginning to emerge and shortly I believe, a house of cards will fall.

So, there is the task ahead and it awaits a leader to take it forward. I hope Alex Salmond will grasp the opportunity on behalf of the people of Scotland, because as I say, before we start on the enemy in Westminster we have to defeat the enemy within.

This, unfortunately is our road to independence.