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?
Bob Costello 