Tuesday, April 3, 2018

A right of reply to Pete Wishart: why "losing is not an option" is an immature belief that would lead to the quiet death of the independence cause

As you may have seen doing the rounds on Twitter, the letters page of this month's iScot magazine contains a contribution from Pete Wishart MP, billed as a "right of reply response to James Kelly's article Why the SNP must use its mandate to call an Indyref".  I have to say I'm rather bemused by it, because with one possible minor exception it doesn't actually engage with the points I made in the article at all.  Quite the contrary, in fact - it implies that I said things I didn't say, or that I said the opposite of, which suggests to me that if Pete is replying to anyone, it's to an imaginary person who is not me.   My article was in itself a reply to Pete's 'Braveheart' piece in The National, and to a large extent all that Pete's "reply" does is reiterate the points he already made in his original article about why the SNP's hard-won mandate for a second independence referendum should be allowed to expire (albeit he fleshes some of them out a bit).  Well, this is my own right of reply to his "reply", and I'm actually going to try to take things forward by tackling some of his arguments and claims directly.

First things first: Pete says that the only thing that dictates his attitude to the timing of an independence referendum is winning it.  He obviously thinks that point is a no-brainer, but is it?  Isn't there also the small matter of honour in politics, and carrying through a solemn commitment made to people who voted for you in good faith?  We must never forget that before the June 2017 general election, the Scottish Parliament voted to hold an independence referendum in this current Holyrood term, meaning before May 2021.  People were then urged to vote SNP on the basis that if the party won a majority of Scottish seats at Westminster, that would constitute a "triple lock" mandate for the referendum.  A comfortable majority of seats was duly secured.  If Pete thinks that no SNP supporters took the 'triple lock' commitment seriously or cared about it, I would suggest he urgently catches up with the writings of Thomas Widmann, a pro-indy blogger with Danish citizenship, who listened to the SNP leadership's promise about an independence referendum before Brexit, and made hugely important personal decisions about whether to remain in Scotland on that specific basis.  He now doesn't know what to do, because it's so difficult to read whether that promise is actually going to be honoured, at least in part (ie. we already know the originally planned timing is likely to slip at least a bit).

Pete writes at length about the canvass results the SNP received in his own constituency.  It's a statement of the obvious that the Tories were gaining traction with their ultra-simplistic 'No to Indyref2' message among people who didn't want Indyref2, but Pete also claims that he never met a single person who was refusing to vote SNP because the party wasn't being strong enough in its support for a new referendum.  I'd suggest we'd all be well advised to take the implication of that claim with a heavy dose of salt, because there is ample polling evidence that large numbers of SNP voters from 2015 abstained in 2017 rather than switching to another party.  By far the most plausible explanation for that phenomenon is the failure of the SNP leadership to find a suitably inspiring pitch on independence.  But even if we accept Pete's contention that pro-referendum voters were broadly happy with what the SNP were saying during the election, isn't it rather problematical (or fatal) for Pete's argument that what the SNP were saying during the election is the opposite of what Pete is saying now?  There was no talk during the campaign of "we want a mandate from you, but we probably won't use it unless everything seems perfect".  The call was for a mandate which was actually going to be used.  It's a bit meaningless to pray in aid your belief that pro-referendum folk were satisfied with what you were offering at the election if you're also arguing that what you offered should not be delivered now that the votes are safely in the bag.

It seems to me there is a very obvious subtext in Pete's letter that the holding of an independence referendum should be subordinate to considerations of what is going to win or lose the SNP votes and seats in a Westminster election.  That sort of thinking really ought to be alien to a party that is serious about achieving independence, but it actually doesn't even make sense on its own terms, because in all probability a pre-2021 referendum would precede the next Westminster election, and indeed every other election apart from by-elections.  Yes, a snap general election is still possible, but the strengthening of Theresa May's personal position means it's considerably less likely than it was.

To turn now to the central thrust of Pete's letter, he repeatedly uses language like "Losing again is simply unthinkable" and "losing again should simply not be an option".  That's an argument that has great emotional resonance for some people, who think back to how they felt on September 19th, 2014, and want to avoid feeling that way ever again.  It's also, I'm afraid, an extremely immature argument, because the nature of holding any democratic vote at any time is that defeat is always an option.  Absolutely always.  I can give you chapter and verse on referendums from around the world in which one side or the other has lost a commanding lead in the blink of an eye.  It is simply a statement of fact that if we hold a referendum, we might win it and we might lose it.  But here's the the thing - if we want independence, we can only get it by holding a referendum, which means we have to risk losing again sooner or later.  Pete is arguing that we must wait until we have "optimum conditions" that will "ensure" and "guarantee" victory, but those conditions will simply never exist in the real world.  His prospectus is a recipe for what you might call the 'heat death' of the independence cause - the SNP would continue nominally arguing for independence into infinity, but the rallying cry would be the hollow shell of "let's keep preparing for those optimum conditions!", which will always be supposedly around the corner, but will never actually arrive.

In my article that Pete is nominally "replying" to, I turned his call for "pragmatism" on its head by pointing out that pragmatism actually demands that we hold a referendum when we can, and not when we can't.  In other words, even if his "optimum conditions" were theoretically achievable, they wouldn't be much use to us if they happened to coincide with a time when there was no pro-independence majority at Holyrood, and therefore a referendum couldn't be held.  To the limited extent that Pete indirectly addresses that point, his answer is totally unsatisfactory.  He claims that if the pro-indy camp can't win a majority at Holyrood, there would be very little chance of winning a referendum anyway.  Frankly, that's an absolute nonsense, and I can't believe he really thinks that.  There are any number of reasons why pro-independence voters might vote for an anti-independence party (especially Labour) at a parliamentary election but then still vote for independence in a referendum.  We saw plenty of evidence in opinion polls last year that a minority of people were moving from SNP back to Labour but were still backing independence.  The idea that if pro-indy parties "only" win 48% of the seats at a Holyrood election, it would then be virtually impossible to achieve a pro-independence majority vote at any point over the subsequent five years, which is essentially what Pete is arguing, is risible and not worthy of serious discussion.  The only thing that would make a Yes vote impossible in those circumstances is that we wouldn't be able to hold a referendum in the first place without a pro-indy parliamentary majority - and that's the trap Pete is leading us into.  He tells us what a tragedy it would be if we were to hold a referendum prematurely and lose it when it could have been won later - but how would that be any more of a tragedy than spurning the chance of holding a referendum when we actually have the mandate, and as a result being utterly powerless to hold a referendum for potentially decades thereafter, including at times when we might easily have won?  That scenario could very easily unfold if a minority of pro-indy voters revert indefinitely to voting for the Labour party for cultural reasons.

Pete seems incredulous at the notion that you should use a mandate for a referendum just because you have one.  I suppose that depends on whether you believe that pro-indy majorities at Holyrood are as plentiful as grains of sand on a beach, or whether you recognise that under the Additional Member voting system they're actually murderously hard to come by, and they should be treated as precious when they come along, and not casually squandered.  We're not talking about a referendum next week - by all means let's choose the "optimum moment" between now and May 2021 when our mandate expires.  But going beyond that date on a wing and a prayer is a different matter entirely.

Now to deal with a few miscellaneous red herrings that Pete throws in -

* I'm not quite sure what the relevance of this is, but he claims that failure in the 1979 devolution referendum (thanks to the 40% rule) led to the near-wipeout of the SNP at Westminster.  Not so.  The SNP had gone into reverse well before the referendum - by 1978, Labour had shown itself to be serious enough about devolution that it started winning back 'soft nationalist' votes.  It's highly likely the SNP would have lost seats regardless of the outcome of the referendum.

* He suggests that the lesson of the 1995 Quebec vote is that a second defeat can set back an independence movement for a generation.  In actual fact, the pro-independence Parti Québécois continued to hold an absolute parliamentary majority for eight years after the 1995 defeat.  Because of excessive caution it didn't take advantage of that enviable situation, and as a result hasn't had the arithmetic to call a referendum at any time since 2003.  (And one of the main reasons why it keeps failing to win elections is because it continually ties itself up in knots with a muddled prospectus of "we want a referendum, but not yet", which reassures nobody and inspires nobody.)

* He ascribes to me (or to the imaginary person he's responding to) the belief that simply calling a referendum would make a decisive shift towards Yes likely.  I have never said that, and indeed I have repeatedly pointed out that the opposite may happen, including in the very article Pete is "replying" to.  I believe this is projection on his part - he's so preoccupied with "guarantees" and "certainties" that he believes anyone who argues against him must automatically be saying that a Yes victory is already guaranteed.  Completely untrue.  I simply take the grown-up view that we might win if we fight a good campaign, that we might lose if we fight a bad campaign (or if we fight a good campaign and are unlucky), and that the future is fundamentally unknowable.  We can help shape the future but we can't possess it in advance.

* He talks of something called the "indy-gap", meaning that support for an early referendum runs below support for independence itself.  But is that actually true?  The most recent Ipsos-Mori poll showed that just under half of people who expressed a view wanted independence...and just under half of people who expressed a view wanted an independence referendum within the next three years.  So simple question, then - where's the indy-gap?  To claim that it exists, at best you'd be cherry-picking only the polling numbers that suit your argument.

61 comments:

  1. I'm amazed Pete thinks innaction and hesitation will grow independence support. We're about to go backwards if the indy ref doesn't get called soon.

    We need the SNP to be bold, confident and unified at this point and take a lead. Call it within the mandate period and we will have the realities of Brexit chaos at its height. I believe there HAS been a Brexit effect on independence but people are stubborn to admit it. When asked to make a choice this will be evident. I can see a around 55% Yes this time.

    Pete's thinking lacks logic which is unusual for Pete. There's no direct mapping between party support in a parliamentary election and a referendum and its nonsense to think there is. A mandate in a parliament that was designed not to allow one is worth its weight in gold. Literally use it or lose it.

    Pete is right about one thing, we need to be pragmatic about the timing but that's why we need to have it while mandated or risk never having the option again.

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  2. I basically agree with you, but this is mad:

    "there is ample polling evidence that large numbers of SNP voters from 2015 abstained in 2017 rather than switching to another party. By far the most plausible explanation for that phenomenon is the failure of the SNP leadership to find a suitably inspiring pitch on independence."

    The most plausible explanation for that is that the SNP pitched the 2017 campaign as an anti-Brexit one and something like 35% of SNP voters voted Leave. So obviously they weren't very enthused to come out and vote against something they believed in, but most of them didn't want to vote for anyone else either so they stayed at home.

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    1. (Because by an AMAZING COINCIDENCE 35% is also roughly the percentage of their vote the SNP lost.)

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    2. I accept that some would have done this and it was a factor, but to then vote Tory? That needs more thought.

      There is no escaping the fact that the 2015 SNP vote largely went Tory in 2017, as opposed to Labour or Lib Dem (although they picked up a few votes in places, the overall Labour vote was virtually static on 2015 - The Lib Dem vote went down). The SNP need to accept that the 2015 vote included a lot of floating voters who voted SNP to get rid of Labour MSPs, many of whom returned to their more natural centre/centre right leanings in 2017.

      I wrote at the time: "you need to go back to the General Elections of 2005 and 2010 (which yielded near enough identical results) to find your baseline. You may then realise that the SNP vote in 2015 included a lot of tactical voters; so they weren’t so much SNP voters to lose, as fair-weather voters to retain. The fact that the SNP retained half a million of the additional one million that voted SNP in 2015 tells the other half of the story."

      I also don't believe that 35% is still 35%. Surely that figure has gone down some since then, with the shambles Brexit has turned into.

      To me this shows that you absolutely should not conflate voting SNP with supporting Indy. Some voters have voted SNP tactically, past and present, whereas some Indy supporters are simply not SNP voters.

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  3. Pete's comparison of his votes in the 2015 vs 2017 as a reason to avoid a referendum before 2021 is not reasonable. 2015 saw many vote to have as many SNP MPs in Westminster to hold the Tory govt to account on the promised Smith Commission powers. Most voters then witnessed how powerless SNP MPs were as they were outnumbered on any amendement. This reinforced the belief that GE were not about Scotland at all. So when a snap 2017 GE happens Indy supporting voters had just been gone back to apathy, with some voting Labour, in an effort to gazzump the Tories. Perthshire is huge on farming and many supported not just the Tories, but Brexit. 21,000 extra votes in 2015 was a bit of artificial grandeur, which Pete seems to have got carried away with. He only managed to scrape through in 2017, and whether this is a fair assesment or not, I doubt Pete will have a political career after Independence, and he is grasping at straws.

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  4. There is simply never a guarantee you will win a referendum. Never. Saying that you must have that guarantee before you call one means it will never be called.

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  5. My local SNP MP had as his pitch 'This election is NOT about independence'
    He even put an ad in the local press to re-enforce the point.
    That's why we lost 21MPs.
    It was the perfect storm for Unionists with the Tories going on NO to Indyref2.
    British tactics are concentrated on stopping an Indyref.
    We must call it when the activists are fired up and available.
    To delay is to miss the window.
    Pete Wishart is having an argument with himself. He's overthinking it.
    New YES groups are forming and there's a growing feeling that the time is approaching when dittering is not an option.

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  6. I haven't seen Pete's letter so don't know if he made this point explicitly, but it's obvious that a later Referendum removes the EU as a divisive issue, because eventually it will become clear that we are out of the EU on Independence.

    Hence we would have to apply in the normal way, just like every other applicant state. Because we aren't special. That's what we want to be, yes? To be a normal country?

    And having to apply brings up the timescale: it's never been done under 3 years. Which then asks the question, can we afford to be out of the single market for 3-4 years? Answer: no!

    It's obvious that the EFTA route to membership is simpler, potentially years faster AND offers both the Yes Leavers, No to Yes Remainers and Yes Remainers like me who think that the EU route will neither win us independence nor avoid unacceptable economic damage - something to vote positively for. There's a 60%+ Yes vote in EFTA EEA.

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    1. Just because "it's never been done (in) under 3 years" doesn't mean it would necessarily take that long; other applicant states have to take the time to get their institutions, laws, etc.into alignment with the EU "acqui" - but Scotland's already are!
      But having said that, I agree that EFTA/EEA would still probably be simpler, quicker and have a wider appeal.

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  7. I don't vote SNP to allow their politicans to make a very good living at Holyrood or Westminster. I vote for them to deliver independence. Referendum before 2021 at the very latest thanks.

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  8. Pete is wrong. You are right. End of.

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  9. Wishart has gone native, simple as that. Happens to pretty much all yoon politicians, sad to see someone from the SNP going the same way.

    Local party should deselect him, he's a liability now.

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  10. I completely agree with Pete Wishart , now is not the time as May said , she did us a favour . There is far too much upheaval going on at the moment with Brexit , no-one in their right mind would throw an Independence Referendum into the mix .Wait until Brexit is complete then the Scots will see for themselves how despicably they have been treated and Independence will be assured , ALL of Scotland will be pushing for it .Independence cannot be denied if most of Scotland's MP's are voted in on an Independence platform . Thatcher herself said if the majority of Scottish MP's in Westminster were for Independence it could not be withheld !

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    1. 1. You try to mitigate the damage by having the referendum sooner, rather than later. You are in effect advocating seeing the damage first - which may also be mitigated in the short term by a transitional period. That's kind of an all-right-Jack attitude, as presumably you believe you would be unaffected by Brexit.

      2. There is no guarantee that there will be a pro-independence majority come the next Holyrood election, if the effects of Brexit have not been keenly felt and have been somewhat mitigated by a transitional period. If pro-union parties pick up seats, such a motion may be voted down.

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    3. So allow the UK to devastate the Scotch industry by allowing the US to start labeling their whiskey as 'Scotch' and devastate the beef industry by allowing cheap Australian imports AND devastate the satellite industry by cutting it off from European markets. Then people will be able to truthfully argue that Scotland cannot possibly be able to afford to be independent because of its devastated economy.

      Sounds like a plan but certainly NOT one that will win a referendum.

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  11. Pete Wishart has been in the embrace of the heart of the BritNat Establishment too long - he's playing by their rules. You don't wrest a nation from them like that. The only people desperate for enough Scots to be daft enough to believe they can safely leave off planning an Indy Ref till after Brexit is the British State. Once Brexit is ratified they will turn on Scotland's democratic structures and powers with a vengeance. Westminster legislation is all they need - 533 votes in a Parliament of 650 represent England. Think what they did with EVEL the day after IndyRef 2014 - and there wasn't a damn thing 56 SNP MPs out of Scotland's 59 could do about it. Scotland's Parliament voted in March last year to give Scots a choice via an IndyRef BEFORE Brexit is ratified. They MUST hold to that - or the BritNat State will legislate to make future IndyRef's if not impossible then unwinnable. And all the huffing and puffing from Scottish MPs like Pete Wishart won't alter that. It'll be too late and Scotland will be locked into Brexited Britain. They need what he have too badly for it to be otherwise. Wake the hell up, Scotland.

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    1. " Once Brexit is ratified they will turn on Scotland's democratic structures and powers with a vengeance."
      I rest my case !

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    2. Don't think for a moment that process won't have started when Brexit negotiations end in October - it will merely be completely unleashed after March. Just recall the brazen announcement of EVEL the morning after IndyRef I. Scotland could jump and down over that as much as it liked, but Westminster legislated it at it was a fait accompli we could do nothing about. Anyone who claims we won't see similar swift legislation we cannot outvote by a Brexited UK government against Scotland's democratic structures and powers is either living in cloud cuckoo land or are a BritNat troll.

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    3. Good to see you Nat sis are split on tactics. Scotland will obtain more powers after brexit and powers you nat sis do not want preferably leaving them in the hands of the corrupt EU beaurocracy. A good stong British economy after brexit will finish you nat sis off.

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    4. You are forgetting one thing , it was the announcement of EVEL that sent a very nearly clean sweep of SNP MP'S to Westminster ! , next time around the whole of Scotland will be behind a call for independence , not 45% , that is what we need , ALL of Scotland to declare we want to go our own way , this cannot be ignored by Westminster or the United Nations .

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    5. A simple "state of this" will do in response to the troll, folks. Don't encourage it.

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    6. Was replying to Quarmby Anonymous, as we were having a grown up discussion . However , the troll that never sleeps , got his incoherent statement in before me !

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    7. Apologies for my own interruption of yours and Quarmby's discussion, John. I genuinely thought your comment had been directed at the Daily Heil's letters page's finest...

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  12. There is tautology here.

    PW says not to hold a referendum unless we are sure we can win. We can't be sure we can win unless we hold a referendum and win it.

    We can win and we shall win. Time for risk analysis and then risk taking.

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  13. I'm so fed up with this. Why is everything dictated by others. The Scottish Parliament voted for an independence referendum by a pro independence majority voted for by the electorate of Scotland. Have it, and if it results in a NO vote, we are perfectly entitled to have another referendum if the same circumstances arise (pro independence majority in the Scottish Parliament and a vote is passed to have one

    If no Section 30 order is granted by Westminster, the only route left is the pre Scottish Parliament route of majority pro independence MPs at Westminster at a General Election

    This is getting ridiculous, I'm sick of the timidity being shown by some on the YES side

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  14. Interesting points from James and I think a lot of us agree we MUST hold the new referendum before the end of this parliament.Pete Wishart has went down in my,and I suspect a lot of others,opinions,wake up Pete we are here for the fight.

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  15. Anonymous@12:31pm. Cleary you must think you are the big knob on this blog, giving punters instructions on what to say. That is why you are a Nazi.

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    1. State of this and its impotent rage.

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    2. Anonymous now Known as the Big Knob. Permission to speak Sir.

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    3. State of this.

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  16. Correct, we don't send MPs to Westminster because we just want them there. We want them to be using the knowledge they gain of Westminster to come up with a plan for Independence, then come back to spread that plan to anyone who will listen.
    The same is true of the MSPs. Both should be working full out on a working Ind plan.
    They should be explaining and shouting about the democratic deficit. It is, unless we vote for one of the two main Westminster parties we have virtually no voice. We are a colonised country, decision taken elsewhere. Now they are putting 3,500 civil servants in the Scottish Office, that is a colonial service.
    I want a Ref to know where we stand.

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    1. MP's are elected in a secret ballot to represent all their constituents...Who exactly has colonised Scotland?

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    2. State of this.

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  17. The timing of the next referendum is not just about the maximum likelihood of winning (and that's impossible to predict except with hindsight anyway). It's also a question of credibility and basic morality.

    People in Scotland voted for the SNP on the basis of their manifestos - on trust. Others gave more than votes. I gave money to referendum fundraisers this time last year, gave up my time going to SNP branch meetings (and campaigning on the doorstep when May called her snap election), and I did all that on the promise that the SNP were fighting my corner - fighting against brexit, fighting for my EU friends who live here, and fighting for our independence. If it transpires that all this is expendible because the big people in the SNP are too scared to take a risk, then I would seriously question what this party even represents, and cancel my membership immediately. How could I, or anyone else, trust people like that again?

    The SNP's job is to defend Scotland, and that means taking a hard and principled stance against brexit, win or lose. Before 2021 and ideally before March 2019. Because otherwise, the SNP risk looking like just another bunch of lying politicians - or worse, lying politicians who have willingly sacrificed people's livelihoods in Scotland in order to try and blame 'the union' in a game of strategy to boost their political cause. Such an unprincipled and morally repulsive move would backfire spectacularly on the SNP. The media would have a bonanza in pointing it out, and for once the smear story would be deserved.

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    1. You cannot be controlled by Brussels and call it Independence. The EU beaurocracy is likely to collapse as the German economy cannot sustain the others into perpetuity.

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    2. State of this.

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    3. What's a "beaurocracy"; it a place ruled by handsome men?

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    4. Anybody (especially a politician) who makes a statement implying that the power an independent Scotland in the EU would have is similar to what it currently has in its UK status is ignorant or trying to deceive you.

      Scotland would have the opportunity to voluntarily transfer (not cede) some sovereignty to gain the power of being in a major economic group.

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  18. I'm not wholly convinced starting an indyref2 campaign from a position of, say, 60% Yes, would be much more comfortable anyway, to be honest. There'd be incessant Westminster love-bombing and promises and "vows" from day one of the campaign, potentially chipping away at the softer elements of the Yes vote, fraying everyone's nerves, exposing cracks in different elements of the Yes campaign, limping over the line...?

    Maybe I'm too much of a pessimist/cynic but I think I'd actually almost prefer to start from the solid base of 45%-ish Yes, everyone (relatively at least) focused on making progress together and winning people to the cause, picking up momentum over the course of the campaign, not trying to consolidate what we've got as the frontrunner. Westminster will panic at the last minute again, maybe that will still be enough for them anyway, but...

    Anyway overall I can sort of see both sides, but I'm with you James. I think it's hard to see the SNP performing better at the next Scottish Parliamentary elections than they did at the last one, just in pure "party in government for a while suffering from voter fatigue" terms, so on balance I think it's a case of use it or lose it (or at least wait a loooong while before you get another chance to).

    The SNP must know that it's going to be very difficult to go back to "how it's meant to be" in the Scottish Parliament with it's system designed to try and stop outright majorities, after two terms of a party having a majority and being close to a majority. A lot of that old collaborative approach is going to be dead - especially if it's the SNP as the biggest party but not by a very large distance, they're going to find it very difficult to get stuff done in the face of the Tory/Labour/Lib Dem bloc against them. So if the strategy is to keep relatively quiet about independence, not rock the boat, to just hope for a solid 2021 performance, you've kind of got to wonder what the end-game of that is.

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    1. The end game is clear and the Unionist majority will prevail again.. You narrowback nat sis wil be confined to the dusty bin of history.. EU no more,
      Nat sis no more..UK forever. GSTQ and Philips hip joint.

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    2. State of this and its pathetic bigotry.

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    3. I agree. Starting from a position of being over-confident is a bad idea. Start knowing you have to fight for every vote and with a solid base is the way to go.

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  19. Pete Wishart should recall that Robert Bruce felt the timing was not optimum to fight proud Edward at Bannockburn. His brother forced his hand. Pete Wishart is a damp cloot

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  20. Anonymous@ 4:42 AM. Ach Soo Nat Si you will say anything to divert from your hatred of the English.

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  21. Vauxhall to put massive investment into new range van. State they can overcome Brexit.
    Meanwhile the Jock Nat sis are crawlin like snakes tae the EU. Independence in Europe the snakes say.

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  22. The SNP had 56 MP's in WM at one point. Seems they are frightened of their own shadow these days. Or is it invented media reaction, speaking for the populous that creates suggested ill will and annoyance.

    The perceived backlash against indi ref 2, was the same hysteria generated when the last indi ref was suggested. Except that was when support was 25%. This time it's 47% and they seem afraid of upsetting people. When the vote is called Yoons will moan as before but then they will accept it's happening as they did before.

    Then it's down to us to win it. For heavens sake have some backbone and do what you were elected to do. Failure to deliver indi ref 2 is no longer an option for the SNP, that's the real truth.

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    1. We will be well out of the EU before a referendum is likely to be called and if you do win you will be isolated from the Union and the EU with the probability of a hard border.

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    2. State of this.

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  23. Have to agree with you James. Who knows what is murmured among those inhabiting the halls of WM, but Scotland has a mandate, and given the potential power grab FROM Scotland, by the UKGov timing will be of the essence.

    After the next Scottish election, and we can forget it for a very long time. Always a risk, but we have to weigh it up. The risk of a hard Brexit, with Scotland well and truly shackled to it's southern, nigh on corrupt neighbour, hardly bares thinking about.

    Scotland is on a more forward looking path, which treats people like human beings. Why anyone would choose a life where even some of their population are going without basic needs due to being ruled over by a nasty neighbour, is just a bizarre concept.

    300+ years of the union, and Scotland has not faired well so time for that to end. England needs to stand on it's own two feet. It's ok to let go, move on, and for that to be amicable and grown up.

    Being over cautious can be fatal, and I am sure have the measure of things. We have to see how things pan out re brexit. Jobs already being lost in Scotland with companies actually moving to England! How's that feel to those who believed the VOW, and other unionist lies back in 2014. Not great I expect.








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    1. meant I am sure the Scotgov have the measure of things!

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    2. If people are going without basic needs then suggest to your nat si pals they they put their hands in their pockets and pay more tax.

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    3. State of this and its failure to stand up to its Tory overlords.

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    4. You voted for them you slithering snake.

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    5. State of this and its pathetic insults.

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  24. So we should fight a decisive battle we know we will lose? instead of adopting guerilla tactics that can win?

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