Tuesday, March 3, 2020

The Wings party remains a dead end

It got to the point where I had started to talk about the proposed Wings party in the past tense, because Stuart Campbell had announced a few weeks ago that he was thoroughly scunnered and that he no longer thought the idea would serve any purpose.  I should have realised that was just another tactic to prepare the ground for the launch of the party.  Even to contemplate putting up candidates against the SNP in the first place, Stuart had to do an Orwellian pivot from "trying to hack the voting system is a mug's game" (2016) to "hacking the voting system has always been possible and is a really great idea" (2019).  I suspect we're now about to see yet another retcon of that type - it'll no longer be said that the Wings party is there to "help" the SNP retain a pro-indy majority in Holyrood, and instead the stance will be one of outright hostility to the SNP.  The function of the little hiatus was to coax Wings supporters into a chorus of "but we need the Wings party, the SNP have betrayed us!", which neatly justifies the new pre-planned narrative.  

I suspect Stuart will still only put up candidates on the list, but that won't primarily be to avoid harm to the SNP or to the independence movement - it'll simply be because he knows that standing constituency candidates would be an even greater waste of time and money than standing on the list.  There'll be some tokenistic complaints about the SNP not being genuinely pro-independence anymore, but the main line of attack on the SNP will be related to the trans issue, which is now Stuart's first passion and preoccupation.  The vast majority of his tweets these days are about the trans debate, and independence very much plays second fiddle.  Probably Stuart will pretend that the Wings party is absolutely essential to ensure that people angry about self-ID aren't "forced to vote for a unionist party", and we've already seen him carefully preparing the ground for that argument in a couple of blogposts.

It's a nonsense, of course.  People overestimate the extent of the anger that's out there due to the Twitter bubble.  I agree that the SNP are going down a foolish road on self-ID, but the number of votes they stand to lose as a result is pretty modest.  A largely single-issue anti-self-ID party is unlikely to have enough support to be viable - and the same, incidentally, would be true of a single-issue pro-self-ID party.  The vast bulk of the population don't care enough about the issue to allow it to change their votes - and, no, polls showing big majorities against self-ID don't disprove that point.  Those polls don't measure depth of feeling.  And even if there was a sufficient reservoir of support for an anti-self-ID party, a female leadership that could plausibly paint itself as feminist would be needed to take advantage of it.  In other words, the right sort of party would look absolutely nothing like a Wings party led by the Reverend Stuart Campbell.

If you want the SNP to take a more moderate and balanced position on the trans issue, there's something you can do that is far, far more constructive than voting against the SNP next year and potentially making a unionist majority at Holyrood more likely.  You can respond to the Scottish government's consultation on GRA reform HERE.  The deadline is 17th March, and if you need a template response, one possibility can be found HERE.

39 comments:

  1. Transformers .. robots in disguise!

    Couldn't give a shit about them or wings ..

    Independence is my priority..

    Why Campbell's obsessed with them?

    All a bit Alan partridge to me!

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    1. Mr. Campbell has a handful of blind spots where he seems to have strongly held views which don't seem to sit well with the rest of his apparent world view. The trans issue is one, and arguably he seems to have issues with women too. His hatred of Gaelic is another. He seems to have gone a bit weird since his court case against Kezia Dugdale. I stopped visiting his site shortly after that.

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    2. And you can tell all this even although you have stopped visiting his site?

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    3. No, I could tell all that before I stopped visiting his site. His stance on those subjects was longstanding so I have assumed (I think reasonably) that he continues in holding such views.
      If he has changed any of his views on those subjects since then please let me know.

      I take it you do not agree with my analysis?

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  2. Nice sense of perspective.

    Point about 'plausibly' deftly made.

    Good proactive conclusion.

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  3. I don't think that wings led by the fake rev and hated by the media would muster enough votes to be a serious itch for the SNP. His character would be shredded in the heat of an election campaign. He should realise his past will be laid bare fact or fiction. Not a real rev, Liverpool, crazy cybernat etc. Apart from his abrasive and unpleasantness attitude he will be leading another perceived English party in holyrood.

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    1. Anyone who walked the length of Leppings Lane in the late 80's or early 90's (as I did, regularly) would see the problems that large crowds of people without tickets could cause. One does not have to agree with Stu Campbell's position to acknowledge that it is reasonable.

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  4. The challenges faced by a new party would potentially be interesting.

    What if it was run by 'good people' who were never 'party machine people' - popular indy non politician types. Then the problem would be, but what would happen to them if they were elected as politicians?

    (Like the calm cuddly Gavin Esler or reasonable, refreshingly different Rachel Johnson... until they become Change MEP candidates and suddenly they're politicans whose job is to take an ultra Remain stance and trash the likes of the LibDems as bitter rivals, that they might otherwise have been friends with... until it all turned to dust, of course).

    I said it 'would be potentially interesting'. But the circumstances of the potential birth of this particular party seems problematic. As others have said, if you were going to start with an indy List party, you wouldn't choose someone like the good Reverend from Bath to be its figurehead.

    Well you just might have, if it had been a couple of years ago, and a refreshing straight-talking dude cutting through the crap of a government party tying itself in knots and paralysed by being too politie and compliant.... But that seems long ago. Now we seem to have a single issue zealot, who doesn't care who he annoys or whose cause he damages. In this climate it seems difficult to have a reasoned debate or come to any sort of workable pragmatic compromise (as to what circumstances any such party would actaully be an asset)

    But aside from personalities (it should not all be about 'the Rev') surely any such party needs to have broad support, not fixated on a few pet causes, and have several credible candidates, and who would those be?

    If a new list party had any sort of high profile e.g. (ex) SNP big hitters in it, it's hard to imagine where Campbell/Wings would fit in.

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    1. Good contribution, but I'd dispute this:

      >Well you just might have, if it had been a couple of years ago, and a refreshing straight-talking dude cutting through the crap of a government party tying itself in knots

      Even before his recent spiral into permanent weirdness and irrelevance, Stu had an online record that made it impossible to lead a party intending to impact national elections.

      They may exist, but off the top of my head I can think of no party anywhere internationally with such a leader. His viciousness may or may not be a shtick but the electorate would have no interest in parsing such subtleties.

      Only my appreciation for his work at the start of the last decade prevents me from lumping him in with alt-right circus acts like Milo Yiannopoulos or Carl Benjamin. If you had no dog in the Scottish independence fight, you'd look at his Twitter history and wonder who is this histrionic prick in his fifties throwing fits whenever anyone disagrees with him.

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    2. I think you're probably right. I was thinking of a scenario where he was at the top of his game and the populace were defiantly rallying behind him warts and all, in the "that's Boris just being Boris" kind of way, or people voting Farage because of the cause not the man. But on balance that is probably unlikely, as too many on indy would find him indefensible

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  5. I can't get interested in the trans debate, certainly not to the intensity level of that twitter feed. I'm not saying it's not important or worthwhile to certain people or groups of people, it's just personally for me not something I expend any time thinking about on either political or social side of it.

    What I do spend a lot of time thinking about at the moment is the SNP strategy for achieving independence, and for the life of me I have no idea what it is now or even if they still have any enthusiasm for determining one. Since the woeful "response" at the end of January the SNP appear to have gone into some form of hibernation.

    I fear they may also ultimately be a dead end, without some renewed sense of purpose. They appear to have reached the limits of what they can do with their incremental approach and are now too ensconced and entrenched to wish to take any sort of drastic leap which could backfire but is also probably necessary for any sort of progression.

    I'm not going to just hand over my vote to the SNP on the basis that only they can achieve anything. They need to continue to justify to me that they are worth voting for and that means proving they have a plan, not just running devolved administrations well. That doesn't mean automatically voting for any Wings party either, but I am increasingly coming round to the fact that pro-independence alternatives to the SNP (preferably pro-independence alternatives that have no specific policies other than achieving independence) may be necessary if only to try and kick some sort of reaction out of the SNP.

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    1. 100% agree. I'm losimg faith in the SNP right now and so are many of my acquaintances. I post in discussions on a forum elsewhere and the opposing posters are all using Nicola's/SNP's inaction as proof indy isn't on the cards for a very long time. Very depressing.

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    2. Trouble is, if the SNP slips too far and an unionist coalition takes over the Scottish government, that adds a minimum of five or six years to the holding of IndyRef2.

      As it is, a SNP majority in 2021 could finally unlock an IndyRef2 later that very year. But were the SNP forced to re-enter government in 2025 after a term in opposition, they would need time to get all the pieces back into place.

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    3. "As it is, a SNP majority in 2021 could finally unlock an IndyRef2 later that very year"

      Being realistic, what do we expect to change by then that would mean this happened? Boris suddenly deciding that was enough time?

      Only maybe if the SNP actually go into that election with a clear plan B that means a S30 is the lesser evil for the unionist side.

      Just waiting some time and trying again seems unlikely to be a cogent strategy.

      I take the point about losing the pro indy majority but if you don't, can't or won't do anything with it it's irrelevant anyway.

      Taking 1 step back to go forward may be necessary.

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  6. You Nat sis are reduced to discussing all sorts of wallace and wears including the wings guy. Union intact for decades.

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  7. Does anybody know Stuart Campbell, well no really, has anybody ever met Stuart Campbell, again no, does anybody ever see Stuart Campbell anywhere, fraid not
    Is there anybody out there who could honestly even vouch for Stuart Campbell, and that's a God no

    Why not, it can't just be because he lives in another country where nobody in Scotland is likely to ever bump into him on the street and ask him any of the thousand questions any political wannabe would have to answer face to face, because if he didn't like the question he'd just tell you to Fffk off and you know who that reminds me of

    Dominic Cummings or Nigel Farage before he became famous

    Similarities? no, exactly the same

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    1. I (a different Anonymous, obviously) know several people who have met him and thought he was fine; my interactions with him are limited to e-mail - and that has been fine too.

      He must be doing something right because of all the people on here slagging him off!

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    2. Let me shAre your Pain.

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  8. Cummings and Farage are winners. Brexit and a Tory government. Scottish Nat si MPs simply reduced to their traditional moaning in the Commons.

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    1. 38% Leave = lost very badly
      25% Con = got utterly whipped

      Oops, I forgot, you are English. Sorry.

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  9. I have no particular interest in the trans debate. I can see the need for safeguards for women only spaces and that those safeguards should be guided by the women who occupy those spaces but other than that I am not much bothered by how people live their lives. I appreciate that in saying that the more zealous activists would say I am being exclusionary on the basis of biology and I suppose I am. Women fought hard to secure safe places and self ID is too easy a means for the ill intentioned to short circuit the safeguards. Throwing someone else's rights under a bus is a poor basis for extending rights.

    That said, I wish all the best to those who embark on the trans path. The hormones, operations and ultimate limitations of biology as they stand today (medical science may change that in the future) make it a difficult road to take and it is not for the faint hearted.

    As Wings seems pretty much solely dedicated to this topic now I have bowed out of that site. A Wings party was never a serious proposition in my book and certainly not founded on such a fringe issue. For those of us who campaigned for the SNP back in December how many encountered GRA as an issue? I never heard it mentioned once, for or against.

    Little is happening above the line in Wings and below has become a very strange place with concern trolls, unionists and something not dissimilar to Brian Soutar's campaign against repealing section 2A. For years Wings was my favourite Indy site. I met with the old regulars at the Counting House and marches, including Stu at the big pre Indy ref march in Edinburgh, but now Wjngs is something different. Something which just doesn't hold my interest. That doesn't look likely to change.

    I doubt there will be a referendum this year. However, regardless of whether it is this year or later we will need a Wings type site to lance the media boils. That might still be Stu or it might be someone else. The role is however essential.

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    1. "to lance the media boils"

      There's @ProfJWR and @MSM_monitor

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  10. I did say when the Wings party was first mooted that it could do well. Wings was a well-known "brand", and most people just ignored the over the topness of the Rev, He might even have got away with standing himself, I think the party could have got over the magic 6%, but quite possibly more with some big-hitters behind it.

    Then along came GRA, Independence was nearly neglected, he wrote articles against the SNP during the GE, the frequency of article dropped, anyone disagreeing was blocked from posting, others just disappeared, and Wings really has people left who are interested in GRA, and a few, very few, stalwarts keeping Indy alive by the scruff of its neck as far as the forum is concerned.

    The nett result is that a Wings party would be lucky to get even 3% of the vote, if that, regardless of whether the Rev stood. It would get null, zero zilch seats on the list, it might inerfer with say an AUOB party getting seats so they get none, and maybe some other Indy party starts up, and before you know it, 7-10% of the vote is wasted. Just enough to cur the SNP down to shreds, and probably even the Greens.

    Laugh? Jackson Carlaw FM will be laughing all the way to our banks.

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  11. A wings party hasn't a hope in hell. The best it might hope for is that the SNP backpedal a little more on GRA and that ensures a Wings gets absolutely nowhere.

    A 'Wings' party wouldn't get anywhere anyway. Only a real, established political party with a full manifesto can hope to get votes / seats in a national general election.

    As for iref2...

    Two referendum bills have now been passed; one on the overarching framework for such plebiscites, and a second on the franchise for all votes in Scotland which extents that to EU citizens etc. The final referendum bill will already exist in preparation to be passed in a matter of weeks (it will look almost identical to 'legal' 2014). Iref2 will have a campaign of as short as 3 weeks. Last time, 2 years made sense as yes was on 30%. This time, the referendum will go from bill to vote at lightning speed at an opportune time.

    Of course it will be held when the Scottish government decides, which will be controlled by a number of factors, most importantly, what our European neigbours think. The referendum is suppose to centre on the premise of (re)joining the single market, so it's actually a decision for EEA members too.

    Then there is Holyrood 2021. That really does need won by indy parties so that indy can be implemented. Otherwise, unionists could - and likely would - try to overturn a Yes. While yes parties respect democracy (we remained in the UK, even after 2914 and when they won again in 2016), unionists / England do/does not. Sure indy would still happen, but we could go through 5 years of constitutional mess before the unionists were destroyed in the next election. This is part of the reason the franchise is being extended to include young folks, EU citizens etc; to ensure unionists/brexiters lose 2021.

    Anyway, with coronavirus now hitting, it would be mad to try and organise a vote immediately; it would look awful to the electorate (politics before lives!), and be cancelled anyway most likely. We are also likely to see brexit delayed as a result of it too, if simply because negotiations get massively delayed, never mind the economic shock. So the transition will be extended well past 2021. It was very probably going to be anyway, but covid should guarantee that. So Scotland will most likely vote well within the transition period.

    Of course there is nothing stopping a section 30, apart from England's pathetic cowardice as a nation. Or can it even be called a nation if it's too scared to stand on its own two feet?

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  12. I don't see a reason why Scotland should enforce English border controls, not if N. Ireland is still in the UK. As the Scottish government control planning, they can veto any infrastructure for checks. Likewise tell police Scotland to focus on stuff that matters.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-51734240

    Scottish government seeks clarity over Irish Sea border

    The Scottish government has said it is seeking clarity from Westminster on whether it will be responsible for implementing the Irish Sea border...

    ...Stormont's Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots told the assembly this week that Scottish ministers were not willing to co-operate with new controls.

    Mr Poots said: "Neither the NI minister nor the Scottish minister have expressed that they are willing to accept any checks at any ports.

    "Scotland was as firm as I was in terms of this, that we weren't putting infrastructure at our ports to facilitate this."


    It's great to see such cross-party / indy-unionist collaboration. N. Irish unionists shoulder to shoulder in stopping a new border down the Irish seek.

    English nationalism is utterly trashing the UK. Only Boris could get the red hand gang on side with the SNP.

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    1. A border at Gretna would solve this problem for English brexit negotiators. I'm up for that.

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  13. SNP's plan is waiting for Boris Johnson to give in to a referendum, SNP's plan B don't exist other than run "mandate" elections. If Scottish independence has to happen, another vehicle than the SNP has to be used.

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    1. I would have said making sure border controls down the Irish sea are not enforced meaning the UK can't secure trade deals, is a rather clever idea. Short of sending in tanks + bulldozers, there's really nothing that can be done here by England. It can't abide by it's own trade agreements unless Scotland gets N. Ireland status in the EU too.

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    2. If England enforces NI-Scotland border controls, overruling both Stormont and Holyrood, and the will of peoples in both home nations, it just encourages these to leave the UK. If England doesn't do this, it can't get trade deals.

      Awkward to say the least.

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  14. As neutrally as possible, I'd just like to draw attention to two strange features of contemporary political life. The first, less strange but more long term and deadly, is the reduction of politics to a never-ending series of individual contests, like football matches in a perpetual league. All that matters is winning the next game (and the fans have no role apart from paying up, turning up and cheering like buggery). Nothing like 'principles' or long-term plans, or solving real-world problems carries any weight compared to 'how are we going to win next week?'.
    Secondly, the curious recent phenomenon of bitter destructive division of parties or factions along fault lines that are of minor importance compared to the main issues dividing the political world. It's characteristic that whoever you talk to on either side of these divisions will agree that they ought not to divide the party -- and wouldn't do so if it were not for the mad, bad and stupid-or-duplicitous protagonists on the other side.

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  15. Has anybody calculated how many seats the S.N.P. would have won if all their voters had voted 1 and 2 S.N.P. and not marked 3, 4, etc.

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  16. What did Stuart Campbell spend all the crowdfunding money over the years? Yes he paid for Wee Blue Book being printed but he got extra money for the Wee Black Books because as well as donating to the crwodfund, Yessers also paid for batches of the Black books to hand out. I mean seriously? Look at the amounts and ask yourself, what kind of wage did Campbell and the few who worked with him give themselves? Look at the crowdfunding of the other bloggers and try and figure out how he ran out of money that he needs and pushed for those amounts time and time again. Imagine if we won the Indy Ref, Campbell would no longer be getting crowdfunding or anywhere near THAT amounts, would he be happy to jeopardise Indy just to keep getting his fanbase and that level of funding for what? what was all his expenditure in a year that left him asking for more each year and keeping it running till he got those kind of amounts instead of what he initially requested for funding. He was quick to accuse SNP of mismanaging Yes funds, why hasn't anyone asked for a break down year in year out of what our money paid for? Thankfully many of us really seen through him so he only has his diehard anti trans supporters behind him. I am in middle of both sides and see both points of view, I do not envy the job of First Minister who want Scotland a Progressive Nation and fair and equal, Nicola has sent GRA back to consultation because of folks anger and it is not an easy balance to get to make both sides accepting of whatever is decided but it is as you say James, up to people to fill in the Consultation forms to give their opinion. I filled mine in over a month ago.

    Check out ALL the mass money Campbell has gotten from his followers, I won't take away from the fact his blogs set out the facts backed with proof but for him to have that kind of money donated and not really inform his donors what all those donations was actually spent on, folk should step back and wonder, especially when so many donated even though money was tight for them. Scroll down to see all Wings crowdfund amounts and all the other Yes movements etc, paltry amounts compared to it but nevertheless very helpful blogs. https://wingsoverscotland.com/donate/

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    1. I always thought that his hate blog was a socially-engineered means of very successfully separating befuddled reactionary pensioners from their bank accounts. £150,000 a year for commenting on a newspaper article every couple of days.

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  17. People seem to forget that the indy ref wasn't brought about by Salmond, or the SNP, or Holyrood, or a blog - it was brought about by David Cameron. As were the referendums on the voting system and the EU. He has retired from politics.

    As for Stuart Campbell: Yuck. He has run out of so many people and things to hate that he will be hating himself, next.

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    1. You are surely mixing up your politics. David Cameron was indeed responsible for the EU Referendum that seems to be taking us to Brexit. The other 2 were provided by him after pressure from others. In the case of IndyRef 2014 it arose after Scots voted for it and Alex Salmond helped to provide it.

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  18. If every Green voter on the list, the die hard Greens and those who lent their vote to them in 2016 had heeded the advice from all and sundry and voted SNP 1 and 2 then the SNP would have had a majority of 1 with no other pro-indy MSPs.

    i.e. a heart attack, enforced resignation or suspension (ahem recent events) away from losing pro indy control of Holyrood. And you just know that in that scenario the SMSM would have redoubled their muck raking and smearing attempts to make sure that loss of control happened.

    That is a very simple and clear what if to carry out. 2 SNP gains, 6 Greens losses.

    More realistically, die hard Greens were never going to listen to that advice but if more SNP1 Green 2 lenders had listened then you could have got only 1 SNP gain for 6 Green losses i.e. no pro indy majority.

    We got lucky, because vote transfers that small could just as easily have resulted in less total pro indy MSPs than more. You need at least 25% vote switch to have a reasonable expectation that the pro indy MSP total would be bigger.

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  19. Stu is not an idiot. He wants to threaten the SNP, not really fight them. He wants to put enough pressure on them that they stop bullshitting us all on independence and actually deliver what they've been promising. He could achieve his goal by either winning enough votes to "hack the system" and win enough seats to force the SNP government to pursue independence or get all its legislative plans scuppered, OR he could be in a position where the SNP is so afraid of him shaving off enough of the vote to leave them as a minority government that can't get anything done anyway so that they HAVE to get more assertive on independence to head him off at the pass.

    Quite honestly, it's necessary. The Scottish Government has not been meaningfully pursuing independence for the last five years. It's been winning elections largely on the promise that it would, but it's done very, very little of the work behind the scenes that's necessary to make it happen. The language Sturgeon is now using - "illegal" referendums and not wanting a court case because we might lose - is the language of defeat. It's the absolute worst kind of politics to dangle a carrot they will not let us reach while the threat remains of a very big stick if we don't keep voting for them. Another electable pro-indy party would be a very welcome option for a lot of people right now. The SNP does not deserve my vote if they can't show me they'll deliver independence.

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    1. "He could achieve his goal by either winning enough votes to "hack the system""

      He certainly can't do that. The votes just aren't there for him - not even close. As for whether he's an idiot or not, that's the wrong question. What you need to ask is what his priority is. He seems to me to be totally consumed with the trans issue and might well be prepared to wreck any chance of independence if it would stop self-ID.

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  20. Hi RevStu! Thanks for your characteristically infantile contribution to this thread, but no thanks. Have a nice day!

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