This is bordering on defamatory. I'm a Catholic of overwhelmingly Irish ancestry. I went to Catholic schools. I still go to the Easter vigil every year. When Rangers fan sing about Fenian blood, who do you think they're singing about? https://t.co/w6VBlHWjuS
— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 28, 2021
But then, this is Jeggit we're talking about, so I'm too busy laughing to consider a defamation case.
— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 28, 2021
Many thanks to the Twitter user Alba Loun for alerting me to a lengthy and bitter hit-piece that Jeggit wrote about me on his blog Random Public Journal a couple of days ago. The fact that I was oblivious to the article's existence until today may indicate that it didn't have quite the impact hoped for, and it's certainly the case that Jeggit has been making determined efforts in recent weeks to alienate practically all of his previous allies with gratuitously nasty attacks on Marion Millar and the Women Won't Wheesht movement more broadly. Many people will therefore think I should regard his rant about me as a veritable badge of honour, and at the very least it's unlikely to do me any harm. Nevertheless, just as I said a few weeks ago when Ross Anderson was using the Wee Ginger Dug blog as a platform to publicly attack me, it's important as a matter of principle to have the right to reply to personal attacks and to be able to set the record straight.
Basically what has upset Jeggit so much are three tweets I wrote about him several weeks ago. Why he's suddenly decided to react after so long is a bit of a mystery - maybe he just didn't notice at the time. But given that he thinks "the knives are out for Jeggit", all I can say is they must be bloody slow knives if they've taken this long to reach him. This is what I tweeted -
"A theory about Jeggit (and it's only a theory). His real loyalty is to Sinn Fein and the cause of Irish unification and sovereignty. Nothing wrong with that, but he's unusual in that he's decided his main contribution to the cause will be via the Scottish independence movement. This has led to him tying himself up in knots, because he's trying very hard to stay faithful to the Sinn Fein stance on trans rights - which puts him firmly on the side of SNP centrists, and against the more radical elements of the indy movement, who he otherwise sees as allies. This is the problem with trying to graft the politics of one country onto another country."
Anyone who was aware of the context of those remarks will know that I was actually trying to defend him, at least up to a point, but is he intelligent enough to spot that? A great many people were accusing him of being a woman-hater due to his declaration of all-out war on Ms Millar and gender critical feminists, and I was simply pointing out that there was a plausible alternative explanation - one that potentially reflected less badly on him. Some of you may also remember that I stood up for Jeggit several years ago when the SNP tried to paint him as a monster due to comments that were, to put it mildly, ambiguous and open to more than one interpretation. But "no good deed goes unpunished", as the saying goes.
His article is quite astoundingly dishonest and packed full of toddler-tantrum insults ("Kelly is a moral coward", "Kelly is an intellectual lightweight" and the like), but what is most remarkable about it is that he claims to be setting out to prove my theory wrong, but ends up unwittingly proving it right in most respects. I did emphasise it was only a theory (ie. I was acknowledging it could be totally wrong), and while it may not have been bang-on accurate, it appears to have been very, very close to the mark. Consider the following -
* At the top of the article is a selfie of Jeggit with Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald. (Even though I was a long-term supporter of the SNP until very recently, I can't retaliate with a selfie of me and Nicola Sturgeon, because I must be just about the only person in Scotland who doesn't have one.)
* He goes on to say he is "fiercely" loyal to Sinn Fein, and thirty-two county Irish sovereignty.
* He then indignantly asserts that it is entirely natural for a Scot living in Dublin who supports Irish unity to also support Scottish independence. In other words his belief in Scottish independence is subsidiary to his loyalty to Sinn Fein and Irish unity, precisely as I suspected and suggested.
* He explains that the reason his support for Scottish indy is such a natural extension for him is that it flows from opposition to "British imperialism". That's a very telling use of language, which suggests he is viewing the subject entirely through an Irish republican prism. Not everyone in the Scottish independence movement regards this country as a victim of imperialism or colonialism, but those that do would generally refer to it as "English imperialism" or "London imperialism". Scotland can scarcely be the victim of British imperialism given that we are part of the island of Great Britain and always will be. There is, quite simply, no British state without us - which explains why an Irish republican like Jeggit might happily be a co-belligerent of the Yes campaign for reasons that have little to do with Scotland's own future.
* He really gives the game away when he contrasts the supposedly relaxed attitude of the Irish population to self-ID for trans people (recent polling tells a radically different story, incidentally) with the British "fixation" with debating the subject. What does he mean by "British"? We know what he means. He's talking about the Scots, about Marion Millar et al. We're just "Brits" to him. This isn't unusual in the Irish nationalist worldview, I've found over the years. The perception is that these islands consist of just two nations - Ireland and Britain, with the words "England" and "Britain" used interchangeably. No real harm is meant by that, and if you point out the existence of Scotland and Wales, people will generally smile and apologise. But nevertheless the basic worldview is that there are essentially two countries, with Britain the oppressor and Ireland the oppressed. Jeggit seems to instinctively buy into that.
Jeggit of course regards me pointing all of this out as an indication that I am an "anti-Irish bigot" with an aversion to "the stink of Fenian", and a "unionist" (!) whose mind has been "penetrated" by the "Orange sash". (The article really is every bit as hysterically funny as it sounds.) As I said in my tweets above, these claims are bordering on defamatory. Either he's intentionally lying, or he's making a wild guess about my attitudes to Ireland that can only be regarded as somewhat "brave" given that my surname is Kelly. I and hundreds of thousands like me in west-central Scotland are exactly what Rangers fans mean when they sing about "Fenians". You'll find no self-loathing here - I know what community I come from, I'm proud of that community, and my political views are entirely typical of that community. Where I part company from Jeggit is that I believe the statelet of Northern Ireland has existed for long enough that it's simply not realistic any longer to deny the people of NI the right to self-determination within the borders of that statelet, as artificial as they may be. I therefore accept that the future of Northern Ireland must be determined by the people of Northern Ireland, and if they choose to remain in the United Kingdom, they may be misguided but they are entirely within their rights. Be under no illusions, though - if I lived in NI myself, I'd be voting for a nationalist party. Sinn Fein are a bit rich for my blood given their historical baggage, and the SDLP are perhaps not rich enough, so I'd have a difficult choice between the two, but it would be one or the other. All of this poses something of a problem for Jeggit's barking mad thesis, which rests on the assumption that I am somehow the reincarnation of Lord Carson.
But Jeggit's most dishonest claim of all is that he is "almost entirely unaware" of Sinn Fein's position on trans rights, and therefore cannot possibly be influenced by it in the way I suggested. Pull the other one, Jegsy. You expect us to believe that you've written multiple detailed articles on this topic without even bothering to check what the party you give your "fierce" loyalty to thinks about it? Aye, whatever.
I also couldn't help but raise a smile at Jeggit's implication that I am an "ethno-nationalist". Given that the root cause of his antipathy towards me is his stated view that I am not "revolutionary" enough, and given my own long history of moderate civic nationalism, I'm quite content for others to judge which of the two of us is the ethno-nationalist.
Last but not least, we have the rabbit from the hat - Jeggit claims he can't possibly be slavishly loyal to Sinn Fein policy positions because he strongly disagrees with the party's support for abortion rights. He makes reference to the existence of the small breakaway Aontu party, which is essentially a socially conservative, anti-abortion version of Sinn Fein. Jeggit states that he decided against leaving Sinn Fein for strategic reasons - he thinks the national struggle is more important than the abortion issue due to the fact that the latter has already been "settled".
So essentially all that was wrong with my theory is that his heart lies midway between the ideals and values of Aontu, and Sinn Fein's. Wasn't out by much, was I?
Great post, James, and I'm very glad you wrote it. There are some bloggers, like yourself, who are a credit to the movement, and others like Jeggit who are holding us back massively. He won't be missed.
ReplyDeleteI wish I'd discovered this blog years ago.
DeleteJeggit is a raving lunatic. People work out this truth at their own pace, but everyone gets there in the end.
ReplyDeleteAn excellent comment from 'scotsmanic0803' published on Jeggit's own site, which deserves to be preserved for posterity in case it disappears later...
Delete"Have to say, Jeggit (love when you refer to yourself in the third person for some reason), that this is mad as a box of frogs. Quite a bit of seeming anti-Scottish sentiment in this (‘‘Your unicorn is not chained, she’s ASDA burgers.’) from an ostensible supporter of Scottish independence. Very odd. Underneath it all there seems to be a desire for people who want Scottish independence to start blowing things and people up like your cherished IRA. Strange. Your politics seem like a bizarre mix of SNP trans-obsessed gibberish and Catholic tradition. The phrase ‘cognitive dissonance’ doesn’t even begin to cover it, and your Ireland-spewed, self-tying-in-knots views count for less than zero in this ‘ASDA unicorn burgers’ country.
Anyway, keep up the increasingly deranged ranting, I always enjoy seeing how far out you can go. Onwards and downwards!
PS: As a man, your antediluvian view on abortion means less than zero. Thankfully."
It's gone!
DeleteAt last someone says what we're all thinking.
ReplyDeleteBBC Scotland are still using the English word "double jabbed" rather than "double jagged". There's your colonialism right there.
ReplyDeleteAll the way through the pandemic, BBC Scotland have insisted on using 'jab' rather than 'jag'. Seems like they have orders not to use Scottish words. Until this pandemic, I thought 'jag' was the universal term for an inoculation.
DeleteWist-wall- correct. As each generation of Scots goes by - little by little - they are unknowingly anglified by the English controlled media in Scotland. Each new generation has a starting position that is more anglicised and does not notice that small creep towards Scotland morphing in to England.
DeleteIf you want more info on colonialism in Scotland try Prof Alf Bairds book Doun- Hauden: The socio-political determinants of Scottish independence.
So, he can place his stance on abortion secondary to Irish Unification but the cause of Scottish Independence has to take a back seat till the issue of trans-rights has been resolved first. Have I got that right, James?
ReplyDeleteHe blocked me for calling him a Sturgeon simp and a fifth columnist using trans-rights to undermine the independence cause. Harsh? Maybe. But I'm done with this idiocy.
Ross Anderson ( aka the Irish Scottish Skier with French EU links ) clearly has a more Irish name than you James Kelly.
ReplyDeleteClearly you are a Unionist kidding on your name is Kelly and clearly you took part in multiple orange order parades throughout Glasgow on Sept 18th. Your cover has been blown by Jeggit, Anderson and all the numpties on WGD who called you a Unionist.
Now just like some of the numpties who used to post on your site who called me a unionist I knew that meant they had nothing meaningful to say and were nothing but numpties. You know who you are.
The British Empire and partition/ drawing borders in other people's lands is just one of many atrocities it inflicted on the world. We need to make sure that there is no partition of Scotland.
Jeggit should take a break from blogging for his own mental health.
Must admit, I no longer read Jeggit after the last three articles. No idea what Marion Millar ever did to him but the personal attacks were way over the top. Can I suggest the better candidate, our First Minster for a political skewering?
ReplyDeleteMight have thought as a self confessed Christian/religious sort of person, he should be using a bit more forgiveness???
Jeggit has gone doo-lally in recent weeks. Another incidence of the terrible affliction of Sturgeonitis which is destroying all rational debate on the future of independence.
DeleteSpeaking of people who have gone doo-lally I give you the Skier who seems to do everything but Ski.
DeleteAfter posting reams of text slagging of Campbell from Wings he says this on WGD:
" so I'll scrutinise the same way as I do the SNP, and in no sense is it personal. Sturgeon and Campbell are on the same political playing field for a living, so they'll get the same treatment from me. The only difference is Sturgeon is way more successful."
Talk about a liar or is he just mad. May have to change from referring to him as the liar Skier to the mad Skier.
There's a sitcom just crying out to be made about Scottish Skier.
DeleteHas he spent his kids inheritance yet?
DeleteSadly Scottish skier is not really a joke anymore. Hes gone full blown hard core blood and soil nationalist. Look at his recent posts there all about Brits/English and Scots, with the Brits/English being the cause of all the problems. When you arbitrary devide people up like that it never ends well; thats page one chapter one out of the hardcore nationalist handbook. Then he has is English 'economic imigrants' comming up in their camper vans panic buying all the Scottish petrol, in the same way that the British nationalist have immigrants comming over the channel on their boats - its all the same racist meat just different gravy.
DeleteThen you have the constant referrals to things in the past. I'm in no way an apologist for things that the British Government did in the past, they did some bad things, but so did lots of countries, my granddad came back a broken man after 2 years in a German POW camp, but I don't hold what happen back then against the people or Government of Germany now, again its only the hard core nationalist that do this, he goes on about the British in the same way that British Nationalists go on about Germany.
But this is what happens when Governments keep promising and promising something and then never deliver. The moderates melt away and get on with their lives; whats the point of campaigning for a second indyref when the Government is just going through the motions and vaguely promising that it will happen but its always a year or so away. History tells us once this happens then the hardcore elements of the movement move into the vaccume left by the moderates leaving.
Thats why Sturgeon gave the speech she did at the SNP conference. That was not a speech that was aimed at soft yesers, it was a speech aimed at the hardcore yes element, red meat to keep them on her side.
But it can only carry on for so long, if there is not concrete movement towards a second referendum soon, then even the hard core element will turn on the SNP and when that happens the whole independence movement will come crashing down; but as I said a few weeks back, the real worry is that those in power in the SNP don't seem to be particularly worried about that happening.
SNP moving to new phase of independence campaigning says leaked email. When was the previous phase? I must have missed that. Anyone know where on the 11 point plan this new phase is? In fact anyone know where the 11 point plan is? It seems to have joined the £600 k referendum fund and gone missing. Now any plan I have ever been involved in usually had a bit of monitoring, a bit of control and a bit of reporting. Anyone know where we are on the plan? The plan that has no timescales.
ReplyDeleteThis 11 point plan is either in Sturgeons handbag along with the knife she stabbed Salmond in the back with or on the manky floor of Russell's horsebox covered in horseshit or in Murrells file entitled we fooled the numpties again.
Only numpties can believe this complete horseshit of a plan. Russell probably knocked it together one afternoon sitting in his horsebox. That plan sums up the complete lack of professionalism and desire of the SNP to free Scotland from the UK. An insult to anyone with a smidgeon of intelligence.
Fantastic post, James. So many in the "SNP can do no wrong" section of the indy blogging community have lost the plot completely, so it's great to see you keeping a cool head and a clear-sighted view.
ReplyDeleteIs it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteI always consider this when I am arguing with ill-informed bladders.
Off the back of a couple of polls and the Labour conference, certainly seen the there will be a hung parliament at the next election and no matter what Starmer says now he will have to do a deal with the SNP to get a majority and will get a section 30 from that, theme bubbling up again.
ReplyDeleteFew problems with that:
The Conservatives have a huge majority now and a conservative majority would still be the most likely result of the the GE (all be it with a smaller majority).
But more importantly it just reinforces the kicking a second referendum down the road mentality. Notice how a second referendum in 2022 is not talked about, just 2023. I 100% think by this time next year the line that will be pushed that a second ref is coming but let's wait until we see if Boris calls a GE before we do anything.
As we all have seen in the news the effects of Brexit are really kicking in now and will continue to do so for a number of years. This means that the longer we leave it until get independence the more damage will be done to the Scottish economy putting us in a weaker position when Scotland does become independent. I two minute search of the internet shows business in Scotland failing due to Brexit and EU citizens leaving Scotland due to Brexit. They have gone, the businesses are not going to raise Phoenix like when Scotland becomes independent they are gone for ever.
The hardcore nationalists will of course ignore this, they will give running commentary of how many EU citizens are leaving the UK because in their mind they think there only leaving England. In the same way that they constantly mention that Scots are good and British/ English are bad they think that the damage caused by Brexit is only effecting England because, Scotland is better and won't be effected.
Of course this is not the case, Scottish businesses will be effected by the lack of HGV drivers, Scottish business are folding due to not having enough EU staff; all of which will weaken the Scottish economy. The longer we leave a second referendum the worse it will be.