So, anyway, as I was saying , (almost a year ago, short of a week) ’the eminent historian Tom Devine said in 2014 ‘It is the Scots who succeeded most in preserving the British idea of fairness and compassion in terms of state support and intervention. Ironically, it is England, since the 1980’s, which has embarked on a separate journey”. He was not wrong…….’
Did ye see what I did there? An almost seamless return! Admit it, ye never even noticed I was gone, did ye? Yes folks, I’m back, after almost a full year off, dealing with personal issues, (enough about that) itisintruthnotforglory is returning, to rejoin the ranks of those entirely convinced and committed to the cause of returning Scotland to a rightful future as a flourishing independent European state, standing on its own feet, as it should, Scots in Scotland, democratically selected by their peers, making the big decisions, in fact all of the decisions, for the benefit of the people of Scotland.
First off, can I thank the number of folk over the last year who have intermittently sent me wee messages asking where the blog has gone? The prize for the best one goes to the wag that wrote, ‘Are ye deid ya bugger? That’s pretty selfish like!’ Thankfully, no ahm no’ deid, I’m very much alive and as entirely committed to the furtherance of an independent Scotland as I ever was. So I’m back, and back to stay.
Have I missed much? Did the Tories ever manage to export human beings to a country best known for its genocidal tribal wars?
Did Douglas Ross ever come out of that huff he’s been in since primary school?
Is Keir Hardie still spinning in his grave like an out of control turbine at the thought of that bunch of self-servers who occupy the benches where Labour used to sit, when there used to be a Labour Party?
Are our representatives at Westminster, sick of being vilified, shunned and ignored, packing their cases, ready to set up shop in a suitable forum in Edinburgh or Glasgow to work on a transition-to-independence programme and drafting our renewed independent state Constitution? No?
That’s disappointing. You’ll be telling me next that politics has got even more batcrazier-than-Brexit since I’ve been away, and that Westminster are now digging up, and electing, hugely ego-driven, but admittedly highly articulate, ancient politicians who have been in more parties than the Earl of Inverness has attended! Surely not.
Anyway, it feels good to be back!
Remember……Independence is normal, being governed by another country is not.
We are in the midst of actual genuine chaos, fabricated chaos and over-the -top hyped-up chaos, brought about by rabid negative propaganda by the unionist media and their wee pals in Holyrood and the Palace of Westminster, full of glee over the fractious SNP leadership race and the fractures and disruptions caused by the resignation of the long-term SNP Chief Executive.
However, whilst all of this distraction is taking place, we are witnessing, in its immigration policy ,an act by the Tory government so heinous in its inception and development that surely the vast majority of Scots, with party allegiances or none, will baulk at the inhumanity on display, once more driving that wedge for the rightful necessity of self-government further into the heart of the dysfunctional relationship between the governments of Scotland and England.
Seeing photographs of Home Secretary Sue-Ellen Braverman positively beaming, laughing and grinning like she’d just found a spare hundred thousand pounds down the back of the settee, at the thought of piling on misery and desperation to groups of vulnerable, war torn and displaced human beings, looking only to better their and their children’s lives, makes me want to puke, but It also makes me seethe with anger.
Is this the actions of a government you want to be associated with? They constantly talk of this horrendous plan to demonise exhausted migrants seeking shelter and fly them out to fake cosmetically sanitised, for public consumption, concentration camps in an African nation with a history of sectarian tribal slaughter, as being something they are doing because ‘the majority of the British people want us to”. Are you one of those people? I look around my friends and family members and I don’t see anyone with those views. Who are these people?
We’re talking about the treatment of human beings here, not cattle.
Having been cut off from the European Community and the freedom to live, work and thrive in the many countries of Europe, you’ve now to be governed by a political party (and at this point Labour are just as wicked) who for all intents and purposes intend to proceed with far right-wing policies akin to the 1930’s. (For the benefit of those who belittle the likes of Gary Lineker and Mick Lynch, saying that they are exaggerating the nature of the extremity of the policy, yes, it is very much along the same lines as the rise of all that was concocted to create an us and them scenario, persecuting minorities at will.)
They proceed on the basis that by doing nothing about their abhorrent acts, by not protesting, by not pressurising your elected members, by not taking the necessary steps to politically run this crew of shady characters out of government, then in fact you are providing them with your tacit agreement to do what they like with impunity.
I find it very hard to believe that even a marginal majority of people of England would find any of this Rwanda stuff palatable. I absolutely do believe that the vast majority of the people of Scotland are disgusted at the very thought of such actions.
That, my friends, despite all the faffing around, incompetence, in-fighting and chaos that currently exists within, and surrounding, the party of devolved limited powers government in Scotland, will ensure that very soon a clear and strong message will emerge, even stronger than before, from north of the Tweed, that Independence is not about a political party, it is an ideal, it is the norm, it is right. Scotland’s government should always reflect its people’s views. Democracy will prevail.
As the eminent historian Tom Devine said in 2014 “It is the Scots who succeeded most in preserving the British idea of fairness and compassion in terms of state support and intervention. Ironically, it is England, since the 1980’s, which has embarked on a separate journey”.
It was always gonnae happen. The Unionist -backing media were always going to seek out and try to destroy all of the leadership candidates for the race to become First Minister of Scotland.
Did anyone actually expect anything different?
Humza cannae make a train run on time, or organise a surgery waiting list, wee Kate has strong religious beliefs, she’s too close to the God fulla, he, she or it will come first, and Ash Regan’s no big on committing herself tae saving the planet or gender reform.
They don’t just want Kate Forbes tae pull out. They want all the candidates tae chuck it, Holyrood tae be turned intae a bingo and all of us tae get into in a sanitised box firmly behind a bunch of chancing New Labour centre right trough-eaters, bleeding us dry. Back to the good old days.
The rumours are flying that there will be a late entrant or two before the books close on Friday. If there is they’ll get a media mauling as well, whomever they are, on whatever subject they can get them on, from whatever angle seems the easiest means of attack. There will be no escape.
It’s the way of things in Scotland. It’s part of the process of a controlling power from another country using one of its tools to divide, conquer, confuse and bewilder a nation which they think they’ve more or less convinced, by constant reinforcing propaganda over many years, to believe that we are unable to cope without them governing us.
We are useless, gallant losers, afraid to be successful and eager to find contentment in excuses why we fail. We don’t want to win, we’ll self-sabotage (with their help) to make sure we don’t succeed. That’s how they see us.
Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson, (I’m still unsure which of these is the current Prime Minister, I don’t think they know either) could take a dump on live television in broad daylight in the middle of Downing Street after dancing round a bonfire of twenty-pound notes wearing nothing but their old school tie, then later in a live BBC interview vehemently deny that either of these events actually took place and get away with it. Move on, move on, nothing to see here.
These incompetent and corrupt feckers resign out of one door, go on holidays paid for by corporate sponsors and come back in through another door and back on the political scene in weeks without fear of outcry or criticism. They have no conscience and they are protected.
But woe betide you if you add a touch of authentic honesty, sprinkle in some courage of convictions, the integrity to stand up and say what may not be popular or win you friends, whilst committing to fiercely protect the freedoms of all.
Mix that in with the bravery to put oneself forward for high office, having been subjected to a long-running vile and unlawful campaign of racist and religious bigotry, knowing full well that if high office is attained this evil bile he and his family faces will only get worse.
Or, in the absence of unity, being a candidate willing to reach out, to build bridges and begin to mend fences for the greater good, a strategy sure to put many party voters offside, and all hell breaks loose.
I have no preference for an individual candidate in the campaign to become the next First Minister. I see pros and cons in the campaign of all three current candidates. Let them get on with it.
Things look chaotic right now. The media is working to make sure that this is the case. They’ll stir it for every last ounce of negativity that they can. But it will settle down. Trust the members of the party of devolved limited powers government in Scotland to take time to consider the issues that count and come up with the leader to move us forward through the next stage of our journey to our rightful independence.
When it comes to politics I’d rather have our prospective leaders being plain-spoken, open, honest and forthright. For that I am grateful.
There is no comparison when you look at the farce which is Westminster politics. One chamber filled with non-elected elite spivs, the other mainly filled with representatives of two parties who almost mirror each other in their race to be as creepily appealing to those of of the electorate who see self as being first, last and all of the middle in terms of priorities as they can be. Cowards.
Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.
So, there we have it. The long-term leader of the party of devolved limited-powers government in Scotland has chucked it, having withstood a barrage of suffocating twenty-four-seven criticism for years, getting the blame for just about everything bar German measles. A First Minister, clearly scunnered to the point of F**k this for a game of sojers, almost inevitably coming to the conclusion that life is too short for this shy*e.
The British Unionist media, in both the ruling England and the long-subsumed Scotland, are breaking their necks to make the same false argument that they did in 2014, when the then First Minister Alex Salmond was driven away on the Friday after the referendum.
No, dear takers of soup, the success of the campaign for a return to rightful self-government for Scotland does not in any way depend on who, at any time, is the leader of the Scottish National Party.
For all intents and purposes, according to these servants of Union, those with power that are part of the political machinery which the media protect at Westminster, and their viewing and reading public (fed propaganda on a level that most of them don’t even recognise as being propaganda, because Britain is one big happy patriotic red, white and blue exceptional-ist Nirvana, worshipping a weird, often sinister symbolic uber-rich family, there by accident of birth) the mad, bad Scottch (sic) separatist nightmare is over. So sad. Hurrah!
Let the readers of the Daily (hate) Mail. Express, Telegraph and others rejoice. Let church bells ring out and spitfires carve out V-for victory signs in the sky from over the white cliffs (which amazingly are not swarming in poor sea-drenched souls from other countries clambering up siege ladders trying to escape British-made munitions dropping on their heads in their own countries) up through the garden of England and on, on to the resounding notes of Elgar, on through the Midlands and on past the new blue wall of voters who have been fed so much right-wing bile over the last twenty years that they have no idea whether they support Labour or the Tories, on to the banks of the Tweed and beyond. For the wicked witch has gone!
For the hard of thinking, those at the intellectual capacity of referencing ‘Nippy’, ‘Krankie’ and other often far worse, some indictable, social media comments, there will be a sense of contentment with this simple one-take-away-one- equals-zero type of reporting. It makes about as much sense as they can comfortably handle at the one time, without having to be barred from using heavy machinery or driving or being left in charge of a knife and fork.
What these propagandists and naysayers are all failing to notice is that the independence movement in Scotland is not about individual personalities, it is not about political parties, or the political leaders of these parties, who come and go.
Over eight years on since the initial canvassing of the views of Scotland’s people about how they see their future (without an official structured Yes Campaign, without a referendum campaign to fight, having been led halfway up hills and back down again following the failure of starter pistols to go off, through mainly, and sometime wildly, fabricated scandals and the odd real one, through internal bickering, breakaway groups, he-said, she-said and the other way round, being dragged out of Europe against our will, through a pandemic, through a period of overwhelming disdain and disrespect for our civil and democratic rights by Westminster) we somehow still, give or take a percentage point here or there, see that around half the voters of Scotland would still vote Yes in an independence referendum. We’re only just getting started!
I tend to agree with Lesley Riddoch on this one. It is time, before the political machinations of the SNP leadership election are concluded, for the grassroots Yes family to stretch its muscles, get the comfy dancing shoes back on and get out there in Edinburgh in a massive show of support. demanding that the civil and democratic rights of the people of Scotland are respected by a government not of our choice, on a date yet to be set. Let’s drown out the Question Time Theme and put Pomp and Circumstance at a peep.
Independence is normal. Being governed by another country is not.
For example, there’s what passes for a Prime Minister these days, who despite his massive in-law inherited wealth cannae find a pair of troosers tae wear that manage tae cover the distance between his shins and his ankles. This fella’s only discernible talent seems to be that he can stay in a job despite being fined at least twice by the polis. Words like charismatic, statesman-like, cerebral and leader, don’t much apply to him. He is a place-holder only.
We’ve a former Prime Minister, a man-child who clearly must still think he is the Prime Minister, marauding all over Switzerland, panicking cattle, their coo bells going off in a cacophony of fear, like they are heralding in the four minute warning, attending World Economic forums, thoroughly disappointed that Davos turned out to be a place and no’ the half Dalek, half Jacob Rees-Mogg villain from Dr Who, before heading once again to war torn Ukraine to massage his Winston Churchill wartime leader fetish. A man overly self-entitled and immersed in privilege but astonishingly he’d have us believe he is often skint, requiring injections of substantial ‘loans’ from individual who turn out to be Tory party donors on a regular basis. Really? Does he and they think we button up the back?
Then there’s the Chairman of the clown-shoe academy that is the Tory Party itself, who at one stage was the Secretary for Education. Who, it seems, cannae manage to apply simple arithmetic to his tax affairs, his mind somehow forgetting that he should have paid several million pounds to the state, on his acquired dodgy gains. Aye, it’s easily done when you are down to your last five hundred million. It seems one law applies to him and a totally separate law applies to the rest of us.
Worryingly too, there’s a scary narcissist Home Secretary in place who seems to view human beings, even children, who land on the shores of the UK, having braved the channel between mainland Europe and England, as somehow less entitled to be human beings than the rest of us, and doesn’t care how she expresses that view, revelling in her foul opinions. Vile.
I could go on and on and on. I could mention the puppet non-entity who took over the mantle of Secretary of State Against Scotland from Davie Mundell, the Viceroy of Joy, a while back. At least with Davie there was much to get a laugh out of. This guy? He’s only interested in following to the letter his master’s instructions, to overturn a cross-party majority decision of the Scottish Parliament, to disrespect the democratic will of the people of Scotland, to tell us no, whilst having the arrogance and brass neck to further say it’s not his job to explain to us why he’s telling us no. It’s just NO, right?
This band of guisers and chancers are just the tip of a very large iceberg of mediocrity, corruption and often dangerous incompetence that surrounds the mechanisms of power and the government of our country from the capital city of another country. Scotland has had to thole generation after generation of muppets like these running our country for their benefit, to meet their priorities, not ours.
The BBC and much of the media, a media which is 98% Unionist-backing, would have us believe, via constant 24/7 reinforcing propaganda, that it is the limited powers (even more so now that they’ve started vetoing what powers we have) devolved Scottish government which is dysfunctional. That our parliament itself is not required. Ooft!
There simply is no comparison.
Independence is normal. Unitary control of a neighbouring country, against their will, is most certainly not.
We were to have the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world. ‘Call me David’ Cameron pleaded with us not to leave the Union and instead to take on the mantle of leading it. Somewhere down the line every Unionist MP involved in the sovereignty question over the last few years doused the fires with the falsehood that under the Sewel Convention Westminster will never interfere in devolved matters without the permission of the Scottish Parliament and thus the will of the people of Scotland will always be respected.
The Zombie from the Manse, Gordy Broon, strutting about a stage like an Alabama snake-charming evangelist, had the masses in the palms of his clammy haunds (and the Daily Record) hypnotizing the ‘politics is no ma thing’ folk into an orgy of fuzzy unworkable stale federalism again and again and again ‘ad perpetuum’ in an attempt to somehow be relevant (vanity has no bounds). We had the ‘Vow’. We had the ‘Why would you need to be independent when the Smith Commission will effectively make you virtually the same as independent’ guff?
We’ve been ‘pooled and shared’ into hideous shapes that a drunken game of “Twister’ could never reach. We’ve been brainwashed on an Orwellian scale 24 hours a day, 7 day a week cycle (leaving half of us feeling like extras in the movie ‘The Manchurian Candidate) into a dazed false sense that we are part of a democratic voluntary partnership by consent, with the ability to dissolve that partnership should that be the democratic will of the people. Oooft! We’ve heard all of that and much, much, more.
Now? Now the reality is out there for all to see. Under searing, revealing light, overturning stones and clearing misty ambiguity, banishing the sale of snake oil.
You, the people of Scotland, most definitely, without a shadow of doubt, don’t count. So shut up Jock and eat your porridge. Bend the knee.
This conclusion requires no newsflash. Many of us knew it already, others suspected it, but now those who retain the power which governs our country from another country feel so secure, in their arrogance and control of one of the last few remaining parts of their dead empire, that they no longer need to hide the fact that a Union that is supposed to be a partnership of equals is clearly, and demonstrably, not.
In fact, the construct which is the UK is a unitary state governed from London, where effectively we, in Scotland, are a resource rich colony, or province, continuing to have the collective wealth of our nation hoovered up for the benefit of another country, a country with other priorities to ours, for the benefit of them, first and foremost.
I’ve always avoided the view of Scotland as a colony as I previously thought it was an over-exaggeration and also, historically, there were many from our country who made a pretty packet out of robbing and pillaging other countries in the world under the guise of civilising empire in the past.
However the Supreme Court decision of last year and yesterday’s abhorrent announcement by the Secretary of State Against Scotland, the nonentity who is Alister Jack, an individual so soporific that you shouldn’t drive or use heavy machinery after listening to him, leads me to the conclusion that Scotland is one of the last remaining places the established power in England can rob and they intend to continue to do so, (it seems now untrammeled by any pretence of spinning the populace of Scotland a yarn of everlasting love and broad-shouldered unity) until there is nothing left for them to steal.
The unleashing of a section 35 order of the Scotland Act by a puppet agent of those from another country who govern Scotland, (incompetent and out of his depth when it comes to his ministerial responsibilities, when pressured in parliament about the details of the proposed refusal to comply with the will of the Scottish Parliament on a devolved issue he was reduced to almost responding to the question of why with the child-like response of just because) sets a precedent for the future, a future of continuing and increasing deference to London and a weakening of Holyrood’s powers and stature as a nation’s parliament, unless change occurs. That change is independence.
You can say what you like about Gender Recognition. It clearly is an emotive subject for some, but this latest development, effectively blocking the democratic will of the people of Scotland, again, disrespecting a vote which this time received majority cross-party support, not just the SNP, is surely the final straw of a long line of final straws and mandates in the dysfunctional relationship a burgeoning, confident nation, bursting with enthusiasm to reassert itself as an independent outgoing progressive social democratic country has with those from another country, with an increasingly warped government, who hold us back, shackled to their post-imperial arrogant delusions of exceptionalism.
Independence is normal. Unitary control of neighbours against their will is not.
I think it was almost inevitable that yesterday’s Supreme Court interpretation of the Scotland Act would reveal that the people of Scotland have no legal means to have a say in the major decisions of government which impact their lives.
Although we already knew that. It is now official and unequivocal. There can be no ambiguity. Scots live in a country ruled by another country. A country which governs our land in such a manner which serves their own needs and priorities, not ours, often to our detriment.
I’ve always been one to resist the use of the term ‘colony’ when it comes to Scotland’s relationship with England. This is for many reasons, not least because our bunch of one- percenter ruthless and greedy self-servers, of the historical past, made as much out of slavery and looting foreign countries as their English equivalents did. But now I’m not so sure.
It was noticeable that the wee lawman wae the serious face, in his summary of the high heid yins decision (the ‘unanimous’ bad news) was careful to tell us that as Scots we arenae in any way oppressed nor could we be considered a colony, in our loved-up, broad-shouldered union embrace.
But if you look at the definition of ‘colony’ on the Merriam-Webster.com site, where they describe it as ‘an area over which a foreign nation or state extends or maintains control’, or in the Collins English Dictionary which describes a ‘colony’ thus ‘A colony is a country which is controlled by a more powerful country’ I’m beginning to change my mind. For these are exactly descriptions of the position that Scotland is now in.
Clearly you don’t have to be thousands of miles away tae be a colony. It seems that in broad floodlit clarity we are now officially one of the few last remaining money-spinning dominated cash cows of a writhing, fighting for breath that won’t come, zombie Rees-Mogg clone empire.
Dear readers, all of this will not stand. Democracy must and will prevail.
For anyone of you who receives the slightest smidgen of snash from anyone of a unionist bias or a penchant for ProudScotbuttery over yesterday’s announcement the response is quite clear.
The news that officially the people of Scotland are legally unable to make any governmental decisions for themselves without asking and receiving permission to do so from England effects all Scots, not just the ones who seek the rightful return of self-government. If they are too thick or entrenched to notice this that is a problem for them not you.
Itisintruthnotforglory has always in the past referred to Scotland’s relationship in Britain or the UK. For the most part in future those terms of reference will not generally now be used. We may as well start calling it what it factually is, (and in so doing I mean no disrespect in any way to all of our many loved ones, friends, colleagues and family from our neighbouring country to the south) Scotland being governed by England. In my mind any notion of a United Kingdom disappeared yesterday morning around 9.45am.
An equal partnership of nations bound by mutual consent is a fallacy and that is now officially carved in stone.
The United Kingdom as it is described on the tin does now not exist and this blog, which has been on a bit of a break recently awaiting yesterday’s outcome, like the many other supporters of independence for our country, is angry, resolute and re-energised.
We are even more determined to continue to promote the views of fairness, equity and justice, inclusiveness and the claim of our people to self-determination, using all possible non-violent means within the law to ensure that our right to democracy will be respected and our country set free from the red, white and blue velvet handcuffs.
Independence is normal. Independence is coming. Stand up for Scottish Democracy.
Far from ever being accused of praising the political leanings of Ruth ‘ermine’ Davidson I will however say this. I’m pretty sure that over the last few months of the absolute and unprecedented chaos that has engulfed the party of selfishness in the UK, that she is a member of, she would have had something else to say at various points in time publicly other than just dredging out the words ‘I fully support X, Y and Z. This is entirely the right thing to do and I’m right behind them’.
What a wilting dreep wee DoogIe the linesman, VAR with the batteries removed, is. The man has no backbone. I’m pretty sure the Tories could sit a rhododendron bush in the hot seat in 10 Downing Street and Rosco would immediately speed dial a hovering nearby BBC Scotland reporter and camera crew so that he could pledge his unwavering support for a shrub.
I know for the likes of Ross of Moray, or Murray Ross as auld bawheid once called him in his usual unprepared manner, life is all about getting loyalty points in the bag, stored up and accumulated until, instead of having enough coupons to pay for a flight to Bristol, they hit the magic total where they measure you up for a cloak of deid stoat’s fur and a signing on stipend of three hundred and fifty quid a day, between snoozes and subsidised five star meals.
The lack of integrity, charisma or personality that the fella brings to political life in Scotland creates a gap in a democratic process in Holyrood which, in all fairness, requires an active, coherent opposition to the government of the day, providing checks and balances and holding power to account.
Stand up for yourself sometime man. You would at least command some respect if you did. Your deference on all occasions to your masters in London does you no favours in Scotland.
Then there’s that other guy, you know, the one with the extremely vital job, the Secretary of State against Scotland. An individual the average Scot couldn’t name, or pick out of a police line-up, or even tell you what it is he’s supposed to be doing for a living……. Ooft!
How do these people expect to survive in politics once Scotland returns to Its rightful state of independence if they slavishly follow what they are told to do by a political party in and of another country?
The self-governing parliament of Scotland will surely require representatives of the people across the political spectrum. Our citizens of a Conservative view will be as equally as entitled to representation as anyone else. In in terms of what will be, eventually, a fully codified democratic Constitution underpinning our sovereignty it is vitally so that they do.
Healthily, a new crop of such individuals with conservative views, but not wedded to the past and dysfunctional former relationships, will emerge, I am sure. I figure the current band of comic singers and ermine -chasers will have made themselves pretty much anonymous by then.
Independence is normal. Independence is coming. Independence is inevitable.
I’ve heard it said in the media and on social media many times. I heard it again yesterday from some pompous eejit with absolutely no understanding of Scotland or Wales, or anything really, apart from how to hoover up wealth off the backs of the misery of others from a large mansion-style house in Berkshire.
A typical example……The challenge for this government is to take on and defeat the rising tide of divisive ‘nationalism’ in Scotland and now in Wales, which threatens to engulf our great nation. We must preserve our Union from these sinister flag waving blood and soil elements.
Do they ever actually stop for one moment though to consider what it is they are talking about? Have they ever considered what it is that has caused the gaping crack in the foundations of the born-of-deceit Union they so adore?
You would think that even the merest smidgeon of self-awareness would surely reveal the truth of the desperate situation of which these public school, private club, hedge fund, Cayman Island cash hoarding elitists seem to fear? Either these folk are pretty thick (they aren’t) or they are deluding themselves, and ignoring the obvious slippery slope towards extremes, as long as the leading political doctrine of the day continues to further assist in their personal enrichment.
There has been no rise in blood and soil populist nationalism in Scotland, or more recently in Wales (as far as I’m aware, I’m Scottish). Nothing has changed for us. We have stayed exactly where we were, where we have been and where we will continue to be, politically, as a left of centre social democratic, socialist-leaning, progressive outgoing country. We’ve never moved an inch, now even a baw hair either way.
But yes indeed, definitely within the membership of the alleged partnership of equals which constitutes the current United Kingdom, there has been a disturbing rise of flag waving blood and soil divisive and sinister nationalism. It isn’t in Scotland or Wales. It is firmly and unequivocally in the power politics of those based in England, who have taken the worst elements of Thatcherism and moved them into mainstream political policy, becoming successively extreme as they draw governments from the crack pot elements of the right of the Conservative Party, who were previously considered too far out-there to matter.
Add to that that under the guise of modernisation, beginning with Kinnock and expanded massively under Blair, a once great movement for change, deeply rooted in Scotland and Wales, has been wrenched off to an uninspiring centre-right position in order to appease English middle class swing voters. They left us. They have betrayed us.
A party in which the word socialist is now a dirty word. A party which would, for all intents and purposes, pass for a Conservative government if handed power. A party ‘of the people’ led by a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. A party who all but pander to the extremes of the government for the few which sits opposite them and amongst them in both Chambers of parliament, lest they upset a policy focus group of Daily Mail and Telegraph readers and lose a few potential votes.
Brexit was a huge triumph for the blood and soil British nationalist elements who used to frequent the fascist National Front, its equally sinister offshoots, the BNP and then the despicable Farage and his UKIP bully boys. Initially winning enough seats in the English Council Elections to frighten Cameron into agreeing to a referendum on EU membership, bringing xenophobia, nationalistic fervour for a long-lost empire, overwhelming and hugely exaggerated criticism and hatred towards immigrants and suspicion of all things European.
The promotion of an unhealthy inward-looking exceptionalism is more than assisted by a malleable media and in particular, a hate-filled news media who have helped twist so many minds that you wonder if they are putting something funny in the water down there.
What did all of that achieve, apart from removing the people of Scotland, against their will, from receiving the benefits of being a member of a huge free-trading, widely advantageous economic and culturally diverse community?
The benefits of Brexit? The increasingly extreme UK government can now deregulate standards which underpin the provision of goods and services and dissolve hard won protections for workers which they previously enjoyed as citizens of a European Union country. Then there’s the small matter of the UK’s wealthy and entitled class, with their cash squirreled away in tax havens around the world, being able to avoid new EU legislation on disclosure and tax avoidance.
In short, even more corners can now be cut to exploit the many to the further enrichment of the few, and those who have benefitted enormously from the sweat and effort of others can continue to avoid the taxation responsibilities the rest of us have. That’s it. That’s the only benefits of Brexit and only for the few, who manipulated the many into voting for it.
The right-wing element of politics in England have poisoned the well of government in the UK. It’s horrible.
Who, even in Thatcher’s time, would not have baulked at the laughing, joking face of Sue-Ellen Braverman as she held court at a Tory Conference fringe event, egged on by the audience, talking of her dream to send desperate survivors of war, persecution and misery, human beings like ourselves, off on aeroplanes to Rwanda to effectively be out of sight and out of mind, without even considering their human rights? (Incredibly Braverman is an individual who, in the current circus that is government, resigned last week having been caught breaching security protocols, only to be returned to the position of Home Secretary in the brave new same as before Sunak government. A farce.)
Yet such actions, such jingoistic xenophobic extreme pronouncements are now accepted, without the battering of an eyelid. Reported mundanely in the news as a government policy, trumpeted as triumph for good old Britannia in the right-wing print hate mail. Disgusting. Something is wrong there folks, very wrong.
No, dear friends, we haven’t risen in any form of divisive hate-filled nationalism. We haven’t changed our political beliefs at all. But we are witnessing it happening to a very close neighbour and for that reason we are most certainly off as soon as we possibly can. Scotland will return to self-government and as a progressive social democratic country whose governments will be focused, as a principal guiding rule, on ensuring that the policies they develop are centred on benefitting all of our citizens, we will become a prosperous outward-looking contributor to the family of nations and a member of the European Union.
Then perhaps we can act as an example to others, a beacon to help bring our closest neighbour back from the brink of what currently is sliding them towards the extremes that so many sacrificed their lives to defeat in the first half of the last century.
itisintruthnotforglory 
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