Month: March 2023

Saturday 18 March 2023

The SNP, A Tragedy only too evident in the making.

Well, what a week in Scottish politics. Mass resignations and the SNP in meltdown.

It all started on February 15 with the shock resignation of Nicola Sturgeon, a woman who had been the first minister of Scotland since 20 November 2014.

When I say shock, I am speaking of the majority of people in Scotland, but as for me, the only surprise was that she had managed to hang on for so long in a job that she was patently way out of her depth.

Not only was she way out of her depth as far as the administration of Scottish affairs, but she had presided over a conspiracy to remove an innocent man from the political scene in Scotland. In doing so, the police service of Scotland and the Crown office in the form of the Procurator Fiscals office, had colluded with a group of close associates of Nicola Sturgeon ( who had given themself the name ” the Vietnam group”) to convict an innocent man, thereby depriving him of his freedom.

Alex Salmond was found not guilty of the trumped-up sexual harassment charges one of which was attempted rape.

Nicola Sturgeon’s list of failures is too long to go into here, but suffice it to say that it is a very long list indeed and here is the thing, she kept her popularity with a large section of the SNP membership. Something I find very difficult to understand.

This evening I looked back on the blogs I have done since 10 November 2015 which was the first blog I wrote, as I had intended mentioning a few which showed that I had concerns as to Nicola Sturgeon’s capabilities going back some considerable time. Before that, I wrote quite involved postings on Facebook, all mostly on the theme of the SNP’s reluctance to advance the cause of independence and the multitude of missed opportunities to do so. I decided not to list the blogs in which I had shown concern at Nicola Sturgeon’s apparent obfuscation in terms of independence, because there were too many of them.

To me, it was obvious that something was far wrong, a feeling I had had from the campaign leading to the referendum in 2014. A campaign which was heavily influenced by Yes Scotland, an organization led by Nicola Sturgeon and launched by her on 12 May 2012 in the Thistle Hotel Glasgow, I believe the idea was to in some way keep it separate from the SNP. It was the first time I had heard her speaking live and I remember having a slightly uneasy feeling about her and in fact mentioning it to a fellow SNP activist at the time along with the observation that we had just heard from someone who would probably lead the SNP at some time in the future.

I could write a book about the campaign and the aftermath. Quite possibly something I will do if I ever get the time, but the point is that from a very early time, I have had distinct reservations as to Nicola Sturgeon’s attitude to independence.

To cut a very long story short. Over time and looking at a combination of missed opportunities and obstacles put in the way of achieving the results one would have expected from a party whose prime objective was independence, I formed the opinion that it was not just incompetence or indifference but actual deliberate intent not to promote the case, of independence, that was Nicola Sturgeons driving force.

As time went on it became even clearer that all was not well. When you have been in business for around 60 years you are bestowed with a great gift ( or indeed a great millstone) You become able to foretell the future, because history has a habit of repeating itself and humans are creatures of habit, in as much as they persist in making the same mistakes time after time.

So, if anyone has the inclination and perhaps suffers from insomnia, you are welcome to look through my blogs and you will find a catalogue of prophecies regarding the SNP, which have been compiled despite constant avalanches of opprobrium, vilification, abuse and outright threats.

This behavior, has somewhat lessened through the years as more mainline independence bloggers came on the scene and infact the ones who had been blogging for some time before me and supporting Nicola Sturgeon gradually realized that something was amiss.

So, where are we now? Well, some time ago I concluded that the SNP under Nicola Sturgeon were a complete lost cause and I suggested that “we need to rip it all up and start again”. Well, this past three weeks have proven this to be the case. First, we had the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon followed by The Chief Constable of Scotland, John Swinney, Liz Lloyd, Murry Foot and this afternoon, Peter Murrel.

Now there are several reasons that this avalanche of resignations could have happened, but the most logical reason is that all these people were involved in the conspiracy to jail an innocent man and up to now they have been protected by the existing SNP hierarchy with Peter Murrel and Nicola Sturgeon at the top.

Now for whatever reason ( probably including the Gender recognition bill disaster) things started unraveling around about the middle of last month causing Nicola sturgeon to resign. Panic ensued in the upper echelons of the SNP. A decision was made to install Yousaf Humza as a safe leader of the SNP and first minister. Thereby negating the possibility of a future leader initiating any investigations into the present leadership.

This plan was rumbled by the amount of party machinery put at the disposal of the Yousaf campaign and Ash Reagan insisted on a fair accountancy of the vote and also, production of the true membership numbers. This caused great concern and the National Council to be consulted. Now the thing about the National council is that in the case of unlawfulness they can be held personally responsible, so they panicked and forced Peter Murrell’s resignation today.

Now the cat is out of the bag and Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrel and the rest of the “ Vietnam group” are exposed. Mark my words. Things have just started to heat up.

What will probably happen now is that the election will be put on hold. Humza Yousaf will stand down, leaving Ash Reagan and Kate Forbs to fight it out. Otherwise, Ash Reagan has stated that she will apply for an interim interdict to stop the election.

The best possible outcome will be an Ash Regan victory with Kate Forbes as deputy head of the party.

Some weeks ago during the debate on Gender Reform, I predicted that this legislation brought on by Nicola Sturgeon would be the Frankenstein monster that would devour its creator. It very much looks like the reduction of around 30,000 members from around that time has been that very monster.

The question I asked in a blog written in September last year,  has been answered,“ will it be the Joker in the pack that goes first before the house of cards collapses”?