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Dawning?
The hope to which I cling despite all Humza Yousaf's efforts to discourage me is that the Yes movement might unite sufficiently to be a force the SNP leadership cannot disregard.
The fact is that if we don’t have a strategy for actually achieving independence the campaign to do so will wither on the vine.
That Richard Walker now acknowledges the need for a clear and credible strategy for independence gives me renewed hope that others might also recognise this basic truth. What he fails to realise, however, is that the required strategy will never be formulated so long as…
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Elusive unity
For ten grinding years, the Yes movement has been devoid of leadership and without a common purpose.
Everybody wants unity. But they all want unity on their terms. Nobody is prepared to make the compromises that solidarity demands.
Perhaps instead of thinking in terms of needing unity in order to act, we might better consider acting in order to create unity. What the independence movement lacks is a core around which it might coalesce. The focus, encouraged by the SNP and much of the ‘old…
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Travails of a blogger
If I haven't posted anything new for several days, it's almost certainly for one or more of three reasons.
One of the first things you learn when you start blogging is that a blog is a ravenous beast. It demands to be fed. If it is not fed at least three times a week, it does not thrive. There is always pressure to put out something new. If it has been four days or more since the last post, awareness of the need for fresh content can take on the characteristics of guilt. It gets to be like work. Like…
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We're all going to Brechin!
Believe in Independence: an evening with ...
A week tomorrow (Tuesday 23 April) I’ll be in Brechin for what should prove to be a lively and, hopefully, illuminating discussion of “how to use the next UK General Election to further Independence”, to use the words of organisers Yes Brechin and Be More Brechin. Believe in Independence: an evening with … is an event I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Just how long, I’m not sure. But…
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We're all going to Brechin!
Believe in Independence: an evening with ...
A week tomorrow (Tuesday 23 April) I’ll be in Brechin for what should prove to be a lively and, hopefully, illuminating discussion of “how to use the next UK General Election to further Independence”, to use the words of organisers Yes Brechin and Be More Brechin. Believe in Independence: an evening with … is an event I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. Just how long, I’m not sure. But…
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Three speeches and contrasting values
That the people of Scotland have the right to choose is beyond question. What I hoped to hear from Stewart Hosie was something about how it is proposed to enable us to exercise this right.
A couple of headlines in today’s Sunday National looked promising as I cast around seeking inspiration for an article. With a column in which Stewart Hosie, the SNP’s campaign director for the forthcoming UK General Election, outlines his plans and a report previewing Humza Yousaf’s address to the STUC congress in Dundee on Tuesday, it should be possible to gain a clear idea of the party’s…
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Humza Yousaf must go!
What hope is there for Scotland's cause when the person who purports to speak for all who aspire to restoring Scotland's rightful constitutional status so casually accepts and affirms the British state's authority to simply say no?
I read the first part of Steph Brawn’s piece in The National today with mounting anger. Steph has been shadowing Humza Yousaf on his much-hyped campaigning tour of the Highlands and Islands and finally got around to broaching the subject of the constitutional issue when she got together with the First Minister at Stornoway Airport. It is no secret that I have long had serious misgivings about…
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Somebody does want you to see this
It seems that this video from Professor Alf Baird is being suppressed on Facebook and possibly other social media platforms. So, I'm posting it here to ensure access.
It seems that this video from Professor Alf Baird is being suppressed on Facebook and possibly other social media platforms. So, I’m posting it here to ensure access. People can decide for themselves who might want to prevent this information being made public, and what their reasons may be.
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Why S30 spells disaster for Scotland's cause
Humza Yousaf must be prevented from taking Scotland down the Section30 road to ruin!
Some of the reaction to my recent article describing Humza Yousaf’s now admitted commitment to the Section 30 process as An act of heinous treachery indicates that there are still some people who don’t understand the implications and potential consequences of the Section 30 order request that the First Minister proposes to submit. There is, of course, the fact that such a request compromises the…
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Wasted vote?
Defiance not compliance!
I have never been entirely comfortable with the idea of a “wasted vote”. I was prompted to think about this again by Humza Yousaf’s comments about a vote for the Scottish Greens in the 2024 UK general election being a “wasted vote”. Surely democracy is about voting for the party that you believe should win and not for the party you think will win. If you can do both, that’s fine. But voting isn’t…
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Humza Yousaf must go!
What hope is there for Scotland's cause when the person who purports to speak for all who aspire to restoring Scotland's rightful constitutional status so casually accepts and affirms the British state's authority to simply say no?
I read the first part of Steph Brawn’s piece in The National today with mounting anger. Steph has been shadowing Humza Yousaf on his much-hyped campaigning tour of the Highlands and Islands and finally got around to broaching the subject of the constitutional issue when she got together with the First Minister at Stornoway Airport. It is no secret that I have long had serious misgivings about…
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Why S30 spells disaster for Scotland's cause
Some of the reaction to my recent article describing Humza Yousaf’s now admitted commitment to the Section 30 process as An act of heinous treachery indicates that there are still some people who don’t understand the implications and potential consequences of the Section 30 order request that the First Minister proposes to submit. There is, of course, the fact that such a request compromises the…
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The new thinking
Decolonise your mind!
There is, I venture to state, a widespread if not general acceptance within the Yes movement that one of the positives of the 2014 referendum campaign was the normalisation of the word ‘independence’ – even if the actual concept was little examined. A term that had previously been consigned to the ideological fringe found currency in mainstream political discourse – there to remain. It might also…
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The critical question of legislative competence
It is worth taking a moment to ponder what Scotland might be like today if our political and social and economic development had not been so rudely interrupted by the Union.
legislative competence
The skill, knowledge, qualification, capacity or authority to make, give or enact rules with binding force upon a population or jurisdiction.
It can safely be stated that the entire constitutional issue in Scotland hinges on the question of legislative (or parliamentary) competence as defined. In a very real sense, independence is a matter of legislative competence. It is…
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Making the UK general election work for Scotland's cause
The things Yousaf refers to - austerity, Brexit etc. - must undoubtedly be ascribed to the ineptitude and corruption of successive UK governments. It was those governments which imposed these hardships on us. But it was the SNP leadership which chose to l
Ten years of SNP whining about how dreadful Westminster and the Tories are while doing precisely nothing to get Scotland out from under the heel of the Union. Yousaf seems not to comprehend the anger felt by those who put cause and country before party and personality when all they are offered is a constant wash of platitudes and banalities and glittering generalities.
Nor does he appear to…
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Manifesto for Independence (v5)
The manifestos of all pro-independence parties standing candidates in any Scottish Parliament or UK Parliament election in Scotland must include an identical commitment to specific action for the purpose of restoring Scotland’s independence.
The manifestos of all pro-independence parties standing candidates in any Scottish Parliament or UK Parliament election in Scotland must include an identical commitment to specific action for the purpose of restoring Scotland’s independence.
Repudiate the Section 30 process as an illegitimate constraint on Scotland’s right of self-determination.
Declare one or all future Scottish Parliament or…
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A climate of fear
Be careful what you say!
Regular readers will be aware that I have been considering ways to expand my work on behalf of Scotland’s cause. Improvements to this site; experimenting with Substack, starting a podcast and other ideas were all either in hand, in preparation or under consideration. Having read Stu Campbell’s article on Wings Over Scotland, however, I am now having serious second thoughts. If he is even half…
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