Tuesday, January 24, 2023

WINGS-WATCH: Having already publicly abandoned his support for Scottish independence, Stuart "UKOK" Campbell has announced he will vote Tory at the next general election


I did wonder if the screenshot doing the rounds today on Twitter of Stuart Campbell announcing he will vote Tory at the next general election was a fake or doctored, because it's a month old and I hadn't previously heard anything about it.  But a couple of minutes on Facebook was all it took to verify that it's genuine, and you can see it above with some of the offensive language blanked out (and by God it's offensive).  So hot on the heels of his announcement that he no longer supports Scottish independence (or, to use his euphemism, that he is "the least Yes he has ever been" and that his "conscience" would now prevent him from campaigning for independence and presumably from voting for it too), we now discover he will actively be voting in favour of continued colonial Tory rule in Scotland next year.

Let's just briefly work through the logic of this, such as it is.  Campbell is explicitly tying his Tory vote to Alister Jack's veto of the GRR Bill - but the snag is that the veto has already happened, so even if you support it, there's no need to vote Tory to bring it about.  (And he knew when he wrote his Facebook post a month ago that the decision about the veto would be made one way or the other long before the general election.)  Effectively, then, what he's saying is that he plans to retrospectively reward the Tories for overruling a decision made by Scotland's elected parliament.  Not only that, but because he claims to find pretty much everything else the Tories do utterly abhorrent, he's by definition suggesting that giving them a little reward for a veto that has already happened is far more important than all of those utterly abhorrent things put together.  That suggests a really quite considerable enthusiasm on Campbell's part for London Tories trampling all over Scottish parliamentary democracy.  What a truly perverse and grotesque position for someone who was still a pro-independence blogger as recently as a few years ago to find themselves taking.

I know some of Campbell's apologists will, as always, point out at this juncture that he lives in Bath.  ("£100,000 a year?  In Bath?!  That disnae go far in Bath, pal.")  Even if someone still supports independence, they'd point out that voting in an English constituency is always a choice of the lesser evil.  Well, that may or may not be true - the Green Party of England and Wales are supportive of their Scottish sister party's pro-indy stance, and have stood in the Bath constituency in ten of the last eleven general elections.  If they do so again in 2024, Campbell will be choosing the anti-indy Tories over a basically pro-indy party, which is natural enough given he has publicly abandoned his previous support for independence.  But in any case, the broader issue is Campbell's stated reason for the fact that he still lives in England and thus votes there - namely that Scotland is the most "gutless" country in the world, because it voted against independence, which awkwardly he would now "gutlessly" do himself.

So let's just recap. Campbell no longer supports independence for Scotland, he supports London overruling the elected Scottish Parliament, he intends to vote in favour of continued colonial Tory rule in Scotland, and he dislikes Scotland so much that he can't bear to live here.  I'd say we've pretty much reached the full house now.

There's still a deafening silence from Dennis Noel Kavanagh in response to the above question.  I remember when devolution started in 1999, there was a degree of incredulity from certain sections of the English public, with letters to newspapers asking in all seriousness whether English taxpayers would have to "foot the bill" when it all went wrong - the implication being that Scots, uniquely among the peoples of this planet, were incapable of governing themselves and were bound to make a catastrophic mess of it.  You'd think twenty-four successful years of Scottish Governments of different political persuasions governing responsibly (far more responsibly than Westminster, incidentally) would have put paid to that fatuous and deeply insulting narrative, but Tory voters / sympathisers like Kavanagh and Campbell are now using the GRR issue as a wedge to resurrect it.  If you follow their lead by endorsing Jack's imperial veto, you are - whether you realise it or not - lending support to a narrative which leads inexorably to the conclusion that it is irresponsible to let the hapless Jocks continue to run their own affairs, especially as the long-suffering English always have to "sort out their mess" by overruling them, and that therefore something approximating to direct rule from London must be reimposed.

And no matter how strongly you feel about the GRR, remember that there is nothing inherently 'gender critical' about London rule.  In all likelihood we are just over a year away from a Starmer-led government at Westminster that will introduce gender self-ID across the UK.  The only major differences from getting the homegrown Scottish version is that it will be imposed from London, any specifically Scottish concerns will barely be heard, and Nicola Sturgeon will be waxing lyrical about how infinitely preferable it is to do these things on a "Four Nations" basis.  Backing the imperial veto is fool's gold - you're not defeating self-ID, you're just abdicating Scotland's right to make choices on the big issues for ourselves, and you can rest assured the Brit Nats will be duly grateful.

UKOK if you want to, Stu.  The Popper's not for Kokking.

21 comments:

  1. Campbell has taken his followers a long way, but this is the pivotal moment in his long-term strategy when he discovers if they'll still follow him now he openly endorses the Tories and de facto endorses the Union, and indeed whether they'll start moving across from Yes to No themselves. I don't think that can be guaranteed, he may have overestimated how far their blind loyalty will stretch.

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    1. Exactly. They supported him in the past because he was pro-independence, not the other way around. He's attempted to perform this U-turn very gradually and stealthily, so it may take his followers a while to properly register what is happening, but eventually they'll have that moment of clarity: "hang on, what am I doing supporting unionist rhetoric and sharing it on social media?"

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  2. Outstanding as ever, James.

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  3. "he's by definition suggesting that giving them a little reward for a veto that has already happened is far more important than all of those utterly abhorrent things put together"

    It's amazing, isn't it? Crazy enough that RevStu supports the colonial veto, but it's his absolute favourite thing in politics at the moment, the thing that will decide his vote. Real Yessers just don't think like that.

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  4. I agree entirely with this article.

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  5. Isolation, egotism and emotion over reason seem to have overwhelmed him. If people wont play the game his way he's going to smash the toys.

    Supporting the modern tory party puts him solidly on the wrong side of history. The current SNP is a disgrace but the proper response is to try to deal with the huge bitterness and betrayal that many of us feel over that and try to find ways forward that give independence, democracy and human dignity a chance in an increasingly bleak and brutal world.

    Here lies 'Wings' - disappeared up it's own b** in a terminal fit of peak.

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  6. Tragic. I also have followed Wings even in the face of what seemed like ambiguous statements from him on independence; but this is too much. And in the broader context, it's evidence of how Sturgeon's gender war has divided and weakened the independence movement. Deliberately? Or because she really cares that much about trans rights? Whatever, the effect is the same.

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  7. R4 this morning had an interview with, I think Joanna Cherry, who said that Holyrood passing it was not the end of the line for the GRR bill. Having passed there, it is now open to judicial review for compliance with civil/human rights legislation at the instigation of private citizens. Not a done deal that is stands, nor is Westminster's veto necessarily the only way to stop or amend it.

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  8. Poor lad, getting a hole torn in his heart

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    1. Nicola Sturgeon has forced him to hate the English Lib Dems and to vote for the English Tories to stop them. It's by far her most beastly act to date.

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  9. Given Campbell was a self confessed LibDem voter when they were in coalition with the Tories, it is not much of a jump for him. Looks like he has always been on the conservative branch of politics. He must be getting close to being a BBC Scotland 'neutral' commentator.

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    1. Yes, the Lib Dems of pro-austerity Lib Dems like Jo Swinson and Sir Danny Alexander (remember him?)

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  10. The Wings gang have defended Campbell's behaviour in recent months and years with essentially the RISE defence - that he "does Yes differently", ie. he hasn't abandoned independence, but he's just following his own route to independence which is very different from the SNP's. But that interpretation is impossible to square with his comment about being less Yes than ever before, and his newfound love of the Conservatives.

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  11. Where is Independence for Scotland amidst all this revisionism?

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    1. Absorbing their daily dose of BTL on Wee Ginger Dug?

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  12. Campbell is a Tory..now who would've thunk that ?!

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  13. Today I unsubscribed from getting email alerts on new Wings postings after ten years of reading his posts. In the teeth of evidence to the contrary, I'd hoped that Stuart would revert to his outstanding pro-independence journalism and polemic brilliance of c2013-16. He seems now to have become a caricature middle-aged, obsessed, perpetually angry man of the sort you might find at the bar of a golf club. To use unkind language of the type he sprays around constantly, he's a bit of a gammon.
    It's actually a relief to discover that he's gone full Tonto Tory, because I don't have to scour his posts any longer to look for glimmers of a positive case for Scottish independence among his anti-trans obsession. I won't be posting on his site any longer in the vain hope that he or his followers might cease acting in a way that divides the independence movement. Lately there had been increasingly fewer voices below the line challenging or critiquing his hatred of all paths to independence which did not exactly mirror his. I certainly won't miss the abusive responses to what I intended as critical support. If others choose also to ignore him, that'll probably enrage him more than opposing him. I don't think he is at all pleased that his much (self-)trailed Pulitzer-level scoop of two days ago on trans extremists has proved to be a damp squib.

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    1. Well said. I unsubscribed a few months ago. I held on longer than I perhaps should have done.

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  14. Another superb and engaging post, Mr Kelly.

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  15. I shall continue to read the Wings site. I know we shouldn't, as the late Frankie Howard use to say, 'mock the afflicted' but he does rather set himself up for it. He does seem to be getting not nearly enough sex, which affects some people very badly. Do we know if he has a gun licence?

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    1. The glorious irony of the "unf***able" insult didn't escape my notice, but I didn't want to be unkind.

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