Or … how Sturgeon has tried to save England
I’m not talking about her flawed and unsuccessful attempt to change the minds of the English Brexit voters, the majority of whom foolishly voted for a proposition that only benefitted the rich and, as is becoming more obvious by the day, disadvantaged the rest of us.
No. This is about how she has managed to maintain her popularity despite a series of events and decisions she has made that have produced no benefit for the people of Scotland but have continued to provide Westminster and their rich pals with the opportunity to strip Scotland of resources to the advantage of London and the South of England.
The SNP was formed in 1934 and, for the first 80 years of its existance, its main focus was on independence for Scotland, culminating in the 2014 referendum. They had limited success in Westminster elections during that period, the highlight being the 11 seats gained in October 1974. Following the loss of the referendum vote, Alex Salmond resigned and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon became party leader and First Minister.
At every election since then, Sturgeon has told Scotland that only a vote for the SNP will guarantee independence for Scotland. Give us the mandate and we’ll deliver independence, she said.
But independence has never been delivered because if they were ever to deliver independence, they wouldn’t be able to use the same argument at the next election. Why would Sturgeon discard a winning argument. After all, if you don’t vote for the SNP to deliver independence, who will you vote for? Failure to deliver was SNP strategy for continuing electoral success.
Doesn’t that remind you of the Labour Party in Scotland. At every election, Labour promised to improve conditions for working families and the less well off, but they never delivered, because if they did, they wouldn’t be able to use the same promise in the next election, and the one after that. Failure to deliver was Labour strategy for continuing electoral success.
Is this the reason behind the SNP’s treatment of other independence supporting parties such as Alba and ISP? For the ‘who will you vote for’ argument to work, there can be no other independence supporting parties worth voting for. So, part of the SNP strategy for election success is to paint other parties as not worthy in some way. Unlike the unionist parties, whose policies they may criticise, the SNP target individual members of independence supporting parties, labelling them as misogynistic, homophobic and their old standby, transphobic. They’re even trying to bring in a set of rules preventing any individual or group from campaigning for independence unless they agree to self-id and the SNP definition of women. Good luck with that, SNP. You’ll need it.
This strategy particularly applies to Alba. Apparently, in a party with over 7000 members, Alba has no decent members at all. Not even one. Strange, as most of the members were formerly in the SNP, but transferred because they became dissolutioned with the SNP’s lack of progress towards independence.
Getting rid of political competition would also have been the reason behind the attempt to remove Alex Salmond from the political stage by concocting a series of unbelievable falsehoods and exaggerations to try to get him imprisoned, with the help of the politicised police and procurator fiscal service. I say unbelievable because the jury didn’t believe them, one reason for the latest push to try sex cases without a jury. Easier to get the ‘right’ verdict? Had the lies succeeded, Salmond could well have died in prison, making those involved open to accusations of both political murder, subject only to the court of public opinion, and actual murder, for which, in today’s Scotland, no charges would be brought. Charges are never brought against pro-Sturgeon individuals, even those who commit obvious perjury.
And now we have the latest nonsense, handing over the decision on Scottish independence, a decision which rightly can only be made by the Scottish people, to an English court. The judgement of the so-called Supreme Court, set up by Westminster to allow any and all Scottish decisions to be overruled by English opinion, was that there is no legal means by which Scotland can regain her independence, so Scots should just lie back and think of England while allowing themselves to be raped, time and time again. Comment on the judgement has already been covered many times, by many people, including myself, here
Who benefits from this SNP failure to plan for and deliver independence? It’s certainly not the majority of Scots, who continue to have to put up with decisions made by the increasingly abysmal English government in Westminster. It’s not even the majority of the English, who are having the same problems with Westminster as we are. The only beneficiaries are the Tory party and the top 1% in England, both getting richer, and SNP leaders and politicians in Scotland, getting richer while doing nothing to advance the cause they were elected to advance.
But has Sturgeon taken things too far? Has her decision to hand over Scottish sovereignty to an English court backfired? Has her plan to introduce yet more delay into the independence project resulted a totally different outcome to the one she wanted and has it resulted in weakening her position even more than the self-id rebellion? Have ever larger numbers of Scots started seeing that the lack of planning for independence, the lack of effort to gain independence, and the lack of desire for independence is being demonstrated almost daily by Nicola Sturgeon, by members of the Scottish Government and by nearly all SNP elected members? Has Sturgeon signed her own political death warrant?
Finally, should we consider whether Sturgeon planned the actions only designed to benefit herself or whether her failure to deliver independence is part of an agreement with the English government along the lines of “you make sure independence doesn’t happen and we’ll support you for the UN job” or whatever other high-profile, highly paid ambassador position she thinks she has the best chance of getting? Watching Sturgeon’s actions (or inactions) since she became First Minister, can anyone really believe that this scenario is completely impossible?
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