Oh FFS! If there was any hope for change for the SNP, it has just evaporated with the news that Neil Gray will likely be installed as FM. A product of the most toxic branch in Scotland, Airdrie & Shotts, he gained his Westminster nomination through a clearly manipulated candidacy, where Craig Murray failed vetting, an opponent was thrown out on the evening of the first hustings for “paperwork” issues, and Gray was then endorsed by everyone involved in running the branch, From Alex Neil to the Convenor -against the electoral rules of the SNP. Not to mention the breaches of the Data Protection Act where members were emailed from a gmail addresss to bypass the three email candidate limit!
This was my first introduction to the dark world of Scott Martin and Iain McCann, and the reason why I left the SNP in the first place. It was the selection of Neil Gray which led to the term McMafia being coined, and he has slithered up the greasy pole with the assistance of some of the most unsavoury characters the SNP has ever seen. The only thing which will keep him in a job come the election is the fact he will be top of the list, as he is highly likely to lose Airdrie & Shotts, as is his replacement at Westminster, Anum Invisible. The rot continues.
To many of us, the idea of the SNP being given an electoral kicking is a welcome one. They’ve lost focus, they’ve lost direction and they’ve lost the faith of the wider Yes movement. The problem is that if they lose the next Scottish election they lose Holyrood, and by the presently tenuous extension, so does the Yes movement. Our own Parliament will revert to a pro-British Nationalist one.
The idea that a period out of office will allow them to clear out the dead wood and come back next time, better, fitter and more capable, is akin to the same delusion football supporters embrace when they are staring relegation in the face. Some teams, like Dundee United may bounce back at the first go, but for every Dundee United there’s an Airdrieonians, a Partick Thistle, a Raith Rovers or a Dunfermline, who suddenly find their season in the seaside leagues becomes their permanent residence. And sometimes, one bad season follows another, until you are but a distant memory.
The Independence movement needs the SNP to change the manager NOW, before the humiliation of relegation, before the infighting and bickering destroys them, and takes us with it in the process.
Campaigning on the doors for the SNP is about to get a whole lot more interesting. Peter Murrell has now been charged and I await his trial with interest.
Without commenting directly on whether he is guilty or not, or whether more charges will follow, I note from some of the of the more loyal SNP acolytes a distinct unwillingness to deal with reality. For far too long the membership was dominated by carrot-happy die-hards, unwilling to consider that there were problems in the party. They were happy to shout others down, driving more reasonable people away to rival parties or out of politics entirely.
To read some of the comments on (for example) Wee Ginger Dug, you can barely scroll a few inches without finding folk who are still willing to to try to pin this whole thing on MI5, who believe the arrest is being done to justify Police Scotland expenditure, and the timing is to deflect from a certain Tory who was caught in a particularly effective honeytrap. What’s worse, is that despite the SNP being unable to produce any of the ring-fenced cash, there are still people willing to contribute to defence funds.
What happened to the Yes campaigners of 2014? Where are the critical, grounded voices of a decade ago? Have they all taken some strange drugs which have forced them into a permanent state of denial and inability to reasonably and rationally assess Scottish politics anymore? The biggest obstacle to our independence is no longer the UK state. It is ourselves.
This kind of delusional garbage undermines the Independence movement.
As a general rule people distrust politicians. We expect them to lie, or at least to mislead, and by and large accept that they will play fast and loose with words. Like adverts on billboards which have massive eye-catching offers and easy to digest slogans, our politicians proclamations come with “terms and conditions” attached, which work mainly in their favour. Sometimes though, those T&C’s have their limits, and in the I-Pad scandal, Michael Matheson has breached his allowance.
SNP politicians must know that they will be scrutinised microscopically, and should be on top of their game at all times. Everything that they claim for should be accounted for, and everything that they have claimed should be legitimate. No duck houses. No heated toilet seats, and certainly no £11,000 data bills. Yet Michael Matheson saw fit to submit that very thing, no doubt in the fevered hope that no-one would notice. Of course they were going to notice! Having then been found out he has flipped and flopped from one excuse to another, culminating in his lying to our parliament in Edinburgh and to the Scottish people. Once upon a time he would have done the decent thing and gone, but the SNP in their hubris simply do not permit such a thing, and instead we are stuck with a Health Minister who is now tainted beyond repair. Having been caught lying about the cause of the bill he is in the situation where no-one believes him anymore, and after every utterance we are left asking if this is another lie. Put simply he cannot be trusted. If there is to be any integrity within the SNP then he must be sacked.
Sadly, we are in a position where much of the independence movement, rather than getting angry and demanding better from our representatives, simply indulge in whitabootery. Pointing out the deficiencies of your opponents as a response to valid criticism is hypocritical in the extreme, and from a movement which once promised to build a better Scotland based on our hopes, not our fears, is simply not good enough. It’s selling out. It’s an acceptance that we will sell out for the same kind of incompetent, troughing, self serving politics, so long as it has our brand stamped on it. Well I’m sorry, but enough is enough. Scotland deserves better, and if we are to lead by example, and make independence the settled will of the Scottish people, then we need to clear out the stables. Our failure to do so will cost us dearly, and every day that this scandal continues is another straw which will break the Scottish electorate’s back. For once, the SNP need to put their personal aspirations to the side and put Scotland first. Like Matheson’s I-Pad, they require someone to change the SIM and carry out a reboot. Can someone please find the right button to press?
The disgusting events of 2023’s “Remembrancing” season came as no surprise to me, as they have been building up for years. I’ve been saying for years that the poppy has become politicised since the passing of the last Great War veterans, and we with our World War 2 veterans diminishing year on year, the genuine reflection and remembrance has diminished with them. What we are left with now is a pale imitation of remembrance, wrapped up in union flag waving British Nationalism, or “patriotism” as those participating would prefer it to be known. The connection to the individuals is almost gone, and for most they are now remembering an idea, not individuals.
Watching footage yesterday of the National Front in England laying a wreath really does show how farcical this whole situation has become, where our modern day home-grown Nazis are openly accepted as participants in remembering the fallen, many of whom died at the hands of the original Nazis. Here in Scotland we are little better, with the far right and the British Nationalist extremists also gathering round the poppy as a symbol of Britishness. We see Labour MP’s and Tory councillors posing online in mock remembrance for the camera, all for a photo to be shared online for likes and comments. At our local cenotaph I observed sash-wearing Orange Order members placing wreaths, one of which was dedicated to the “UVF”, the other proclaimed “No Surrender”. There’s no humility or dignity involved anymore, it’s merely competitive staunchness.
“No Surrender”, a slogan used by the Orange Order
That Suella Braverman tapped into this market of extreme British Nationalism is unsurprising, after all it was the same “Little Englander” mentality which brought us Brexit, but she pushed just that bit too hard this time, and it has fuelled a rise not just in racist and xenophobic comment, it emboldened the thugs and put their jackboots on the street, snarling and spitting at those who aren’t white, poppy wearing British citizens, and leading to a wave of violence and arrests. Her sacking is welcome, but the words she used and the attitudes she displayed remain at the core of the Tory party, and may still pay off for them in the long run, what with an election coming in the next twelve months.
One thing I couldn’t help but notice on Sunday was that considering there is a sizeable and vocal element of Scottish society who display their poppy 365 days a year, and who are not slow at criticising anyone who fails to wear one come poppy season, their numbers are very thin on the ground come the actual day itself. Where are they at 11am on a cold, frosty November morning? Not at the cenotaph, that’s for sure. I guess they forgot.
With the kind of flair he is renowned for, Alex Salmond managed to move the Alba Party Conference from something of interest to members and political hacks, to one of the main items on every news bulletin, with his announcement that Ash Regan MSP had left the SNP and joined the Alba Party. This sent another shockwave through the SNP, who hot on the heels of losing Lisa Cameron MP to the Tories, have now lost someone who only recently ran for leadership of the party. To lose one is careless, to lose two must be concerning.
Not so, according to Humza Yousaf, who made himself look very small when he said that it was “no great loss” to the party. What exactly does that say to the general public? Any reasonable person must ask how many others have been elected who are “no great loss” either. Mr Yousaf’s soor grapes chimed with many SNP members who claimed to have heaved a collective sigh of relief now that this “agent provocateur was now gone, while others began sharpening their long knives as they seek to rid themselves of others who are dissatisfied with the direction of the party, such as Fergus Ewing.
A few weeks ago it was claimed that the SNP were losing voters who were switching to Labour, but it appears that committed independence supporters, such as Ash Regan aren’t being seduced by by Sir Keir’s menu of continued Brexit topped with the magic beans of your choice, but are switching to other independence parties, Alba being one. The old saying of “I didn’t leave the party, the party left me” is uppermost in many of their minds, and it seems to concern no-one in the SNP that MPs, MSPs, Councillors, members and voters are all bailing out. When is it going to register that the SNP in its current state is rendering itself unelectable? Nothing seems to register anymore, and every defeat or injury is written off without thought.
The SNP as a collective, from top to bottom have now reached a point where they are acting like the fans of a once successful football team who are now facing a relegation dogfight, and either refuse to accept it can happen or are consoling themselves that they will soon be rid of all the under-achievers and hangers on. As a supporter of a team which has experienced relegation, the proverbial “season in the lower league” doesn’t always pay off and more often leads to an extended stay, a loss of fans and occasionally oblivion. The SNP are on the verge of taking Celtic and turning them into Albion Rovers. The season is not over though, and with many fixtures still to play they can turn things round. They need to accept that the new manager is a dud, and they need to change things now if they want to stop losing their best and brightest to the opposition. Otherwise it’s goodbye San Siro, hello San Giro…
Coverage in the Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser of our protest outside NLC Headquarters, just on part of a successful grass-roots community campaign to save 39 community facilities are 110 jobs across North Lanarkshire.
I was the organiser of the protest which took place outside North Lanarkshire Council headquarters in Motherwell last week, and I would like to thank everyone who came along for their attendance. We were only a small part of a movement which spread the length and breadth of North Lanarkshire, and it was only thanks to the tens of thousands of people in the area getting active, signing petitions and pressurising local and national politicians, which caused NLC to u-turn and save our community facilities (it must be stressed that this is only a short term promise though).
After the protest I attended the council meeting which was scheduled to take place, to see the decision ratified, as up until that point it had not been. What became apparent during that meeting was that there had been significant behind-the-scenes shenanigans going on. The SNP group had called for a vote of no confidence in Leader of the Council Jim Logue, and on hearing why it had been called I could not disagree. The Policy & Strategy Committee of the council had voted for these cuts to go ahead by 13 votes to 12. It was not in Councillor Logue’s power to override this, so to announce this without giving the full council any say in the matter was completely and utterly wrong. When it was then revealed that Anas Sarwar, leader of the Labour Party group in Scotland, had let it slip to the press that an announcement was coming later that day, it became clear that these 39 unavoidable closures were not only completely avoidable, but they were politically toxic in the run up to a major by-election.
Our local politicians should bear in mind going forward, we are not political playthings, and they take on the people at their peril.
I couldn’t help but put my head in my hands and groan when I started to the see social media come alive with angry SNP members and groups demanding that Lisa Cameron immediately resign and trigger a by-election for jumping ship and defecting to the Tories, and by the time Humza Yousaf himself called on her to do “the honourable thing” I could almost hear the ‘Hypocrisy Bus’ reversing out of the garage.
In February 2023 the Scottish Government rejected a petition which would have made it a mandatory requirement for elected representatives to stand down in the event they no longer represented the party ticket they were elected on. Not one SNP MSP supported this, so we have to ask, if this is not good enough for Scotland’s parliament, why should we demand it of the Westminster one? Had the SNP supported such a move then I’d be at the head of the line demanding she resign, but they didn’t, and as such they will just have to suck it up and deal with the fallout.
The current bin-fire which engulfs the SNP is one of the most disheartening events we, as a broad church independence movement could bear witness to. The SNP, as the de-facto head of the Yes camp very nearly took us to victory in 2014. So to see this, the latest in a long line of self-inflicted disasters, does none of us any good. At every point in recent years where the SNP have had the chance to take the right path, they have gone up cul-de-sacs and taken wrong turns until they have become completely lost, to themselves and to the voters. They have suffered so many injuries that they now remind me of “The Black Knight” in Monty Python, and I can only imagine that at the next Westminster election their campaign slogan will along the lines of “we’ll bite your legs off”.
The party membership must take their fair share of the blame, but many appear to have adopted the same self-deluding attitude as the party leadership, having lost the ability to “see themselves as ithers see us”. Unless there is a serious change within the SNP in the immediate future then I am no doubt that the SNP will lose many seats at Westminster next year, and while that may be a personal disaster for the party, it will be a bitter blow to the wider Yes movement.
In 2014 there was one party with independence as it’s raison d’etre. Now there are at least another two, while others are independence supporting, such as the Greens and the Scottish Socialists. After the Rutherglen by-election, Labour made the claim that the SNP voters were deserting them to go to Labour. Committed independence supporters may be leaving the SNP, but there is no evidence they are going to Labour, indeed all evidence points to them moving to other independence parties, and very few go full on Lisa Cameron and jump to a British Nationalist extremist party.
I fear that without a change in leadership and direction from the SNP, in the short term, the campaign for Scottish independence will come to a halt. Should Labour win the next UK general election, there may from some quarters be a sigh of relief that the Tories are gone. All that will have been achieved in such a case is a brief respite in which we can await their return to government, but what will really change in the interim anyway? Labour are moving so far to the right to ape the Tories, that we may as well not bother in the first place. The only long term solution for Scotland is independence from the basket case UK. The SNP cannot be allowed to put that at risk. To any SNP member who will be attending your conference, the Yes movement reminds you: “Carpe Diem”. Make your voices heard and stop the rot now. Otherwise we all suffer for your actions.
Before yesterday’s full council meeting there was a protest held outside NLC HQ, against the 39 community facility closures which had been agreed by the NLC Policy and Strategy Committe. The following members voted for the closures:
Alan Beveridge (Airdrie North) Independent
Angella Campbell (Bellshill) Labour
Chris Costello (Airdrie Central) Labour
Kenny Duffy (Motherwell South East & Ravenscraig) Labour
Andrew Duffy-Lawson (Motherwell North) Labour
Tom Fisher (Cumbernauld North) Labour
Jim Logue (Airdrie Central) Labour
Helen Loughran (Thorniewood) Labour
Michael McBride (Airdrie South) Labour
Lorraine Nolan (Motherwell West) Conservative
Louise Roarty (Murdostoun) Labour
Sandy Watson (Airdrie South) Conservative
Geraldine Woods (Coatbridge South) Labour
Councillor Heather Brannan-McVey(Kilsyth) Labour abstained.
I had organised the protest at short notice and the text of my speech is below:
My name is Jim Cassidy and I called for this protest today when the news broke that our local swimming pool in Airdrie was one of the many facilities across North Lanarkshire which was to be closed down by North Lanarkshire Council.
I’ve never organised a protest rally before, so to have them back down before it was due to take place was amazing. I’ll need to organise them more often! Joking aside, the ruling group within the council only reversed their decision after pressure from individuals and groups from across our council area, groups like the Bellshill Sharks and the WKC Karate Club in Holytown, and from over 21,000 signatures on numerous petitions online, and from people contacting their councillors, MSPs and Mps directly.
A total of 39 locations which form the heart of our communities was to be ripped out, ranging from the larger facilities which serve the towns and surrounding areas, such as the Aquatec in Motherwell, and the John Smith Pool in Airdrie, to community libraries, and to smaller community centres in our villages. No part of North Lanarkshire was to be untouched, from Kilsyth in the North to Motherwell in the South, from Stepps in the West to Shotts in the East. The facilities available to the 340,000 residents were voted out of existence by just 13 councillors, with just ONE vote tipping the balance in favour of the destruction of facilities which they had been entrusted to protect!
This issue united people across North Lanarkshire in a way previously unseen. It didn’t matter who you voted for at the last election, whether you were Labour, SNP, Tory, Green or otherwise: every single one of us would be affected, and there was no positive to take from this for anyone. Who cares if you can turn round and try to put the blame on the opposition party, or Holyrood, or Westminster? What GOOD does that do? How does that HELP your community?
Our politicians, especially the ones who made this horrendous decision, were more than happy to play petty politics with OUR communities. Well, WE, THE PEOPLE of North Lanarkshire are here to tell you that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. You can no longer rip apart our communities, demolish our history and destroy our future and claim that “A BIG BOY DONE IT AND RAN AWAY”. That’s why those responsible are shamefully sneaking in the back door today, and we are standing here with our heads held high. Because we stood up for our communities when they didn’t.
Even after their decision they behaved in a manner which suggested that they were immune to criticism. Politicians like to tell us that “WE ARE LISTENING” when in reality they are putting their fingers in their ears and hoping we little people go away. North Lanarkshire Council blocked replies on social media. Councillors refused to respond to residents questions. Comments on certain Facebook Community groups were deleted if they tried to question the decision made by the committee or promote events such as this one. Well, they are listening now, aren’t they?
And they will still be listening when the next by-election is held, and when the next council election takes place in 2027. I am not going to tell you who to vote for, but I am going to ask that whatever happens you do two things:
GET OUT AND VOTE. In the 2022 Council elections turnout across North Lanarkshire was appalling low, in some wards as low as 37%. In the recent Bellshill by-election the turnout was just 22%! That’s pitiful. For anyone who thinks it’s just the “cooncil elections” and they don’t matter, it’s days like this that drives it home that they DO matter!
DEMAND BETTER FROM THE PEOPLE WE ELECT. Paying attention to their promises and manifestos is one thing, but as communities we not only need to scrutinise what they are offering, but we need to make our demands to them clear! We will not elect them to rip apart our communities. No, we elect them to protect them, and it should be made clear to them that among all the things their party wants they must include guarantuees for the things we want. We need to draw OUR red lines.
Now that we have their attention, one final message.
HANDS OFF OUR COMMUNITY FACILITIES. We are watching and what you tried to get away with today, you will not get away with tomorrow. We will not accept closures by the back door. We will not allow you to pick us off one by one, reducing opening hours here, cutting jobs there. That stops TODAY! NLC have for years reduced opening hours to the extent that our own community facilities become unusable, then they commission reports which say that “low footfall” is the reason for them closing! They created the low-footfall in the first place! Death by 1000 cuts stops NOW! If you can find the £5 million overnight to reverse these cuts, you can look a bit harder and do better.
There has been some complaint that Alba are not standing in the Rutherglen by-election, with some suggesting that Alex Salmond should have stood in the constituency. Personally, I’m glad that Alex Salmond is not standing in Rutherglen, simply because he would be viewed as a carpetbagger with no connection to the area.
The whole offer by Alba not to stand came across to me as insincere and political theatrics, as I felt they weren’t going to stand anyway; had they done so they would be painted as the bad guys who cost the Yes movement a seat. I’m fairly certain that the SNP can manage that on their own, and a catastrophic loss there may hasten the departure of Humza Yousaf, allowing the SNP to finally face up to the position they have put themselves, and by extension, the Yes movement.
Alba must now look to the next Westminster election, and while concentrating on electing Hanvey and MacAskill may be a priority for some within the party, Alba must be considering standing in other seats at the next Westminster election. From my own experience, in this area, the party are trying not only to run before they can walk, but are expecting to take gold in the process. It’s all very well folk attending various Nation Council’s and assemblies, but if you cannot even hold a quorate LACU meeting, who exactly are you representing? We have to get the foundations right, and at this time, in this area at least, the foundations which were laid have not been built on. If we cannot get those basics right then we cannot raise funds, organise activists or campaign. In short, we cannot win.
I suppose the last question we have to consider going in to the Rutherglen by-election is: will Alba encourage their voters to “hold their noses” and vote SNP? Given the reasons why people moved from SNP to Alba, a dignified silence would be welcome.
An Independent Scotsman 