Monday, February 6, 2023

Are dark forces using the GRR obsession as a "gateway drug" to take independence supporters on a journey to British nationalism?

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm becoming increasingly concerned that the GRR issue is being intentionally used as a "gateway drug" to convert former Yessers to both unionism and Toryism.  As bizarre as it may seem, Wings Over Scotland today published its twenty-first post in a row about the GRR, with the subtext of that editorial obsession presumably being that trans rights are the defining and all-consuming battle of our age.  Forget about independence, forget about social justice, forget about the cost of living, forget about the Ukraine war, forget about the climate emergency, forget about the threat of nuclear weapons, forget about Covid - all that matters, all day, every day, is the women-with-beards issue.  Ironically, Stuart Campbell is actually closer to Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Green Party than he is to the vast majority of the Scottish population in one key sense - ie. he thinks the trans issue is far, far more important than absolutely anything else.  That represents a catastrophic loss of perspective - unless, of course, there is a wider agenda behind it.  

My own guess is that Campbell's coded announcement a few weeks ago that he no longer supports independence, and his more direct announcement that he has now become a Tory voter, is part of a process intended to gradually soften up his readers.  If he had suddenly said out of the blue "join me in abandoning independence and supporting the Tories" he'd have encountered substantial resistance, so instead he's giving his readers time to get used to the idea of their hero being a Tory-voting de facto unionist, in the hope that what they used to despise will slowly become normalised as something that "people like them" do.  The next part of the strategy is to keep whipping up the women-with-beards hysteria on a daily basis (perhaps we should run a sweepstake on when Campbell will next publish a post that is NOT about the trans issue), and get his readers so angry and obsessed about the subject to the exclusion of everything else, and get the focus of that rage so fully trained on a Nicola Sturgeon systematically portrayed as a monster, that when he finally chooses his perfect moment to urge them to vote Tory and reject independence "for now", they'll be receptive to the message.

Nobody can directly stop this process from happening.  All we can do is point out to people the way in which the manipulation is working, and if certain predictions come true - for example, if Campbell does urge his readers to consider voting Tory in Scottish seats or to abstain - they might start joining up the dots for themselves.  But if they're determined not to see what's happening, they won't.

I was asked a few days ago, by someone who evidently thought they were posing a killer question, how I would recommend voting in the Bath constituency if you want both Scottish independence and the protection of women's rights.  It's important to stress this is not a Bath-specific or England-specific question, because unless Alba stand in every Scottish constituency (which I'm almost certain they won't), voters will face precisely the same dilemma in Scotland.  That's exactly why there's such an obvious and natural progression between Campbell announcing that he will vote Tory in Bath and him eventually telling his readers to either vote Tory or abstain in Scotland.

The reality, of course, is that in Bath, as in many constituencies in Scotland, it is unlikely to be possible to find a candidate that both supports Scottish independence and opposes gender self-ID.  As a voter, you therefore have to decide what your first principle is, and for me it's that Scotland must be free to govern itself and make its own decisions.  My second priority is social justice, and when you put those two imperatives together a Tory vote simply becomes impossible, whether in Bath or anywhere else.  If l lived in Bath and there was a Green candidate, as there has been in all but one general election since 1979, I strongly suspect I would vote Green.  That would mean voting for a pro-self-ID party, but it categorically would not entail abandoning my own opposition to self-ID.  It's perfectly possible to advocate for change within the party you are either a member of or that you vote for.  Indeed, I believe I'm right in saying the Green Party of England and Wales is the only political party Campbell has ever tried to join, and he did so with the intention of supporting the anti-self-ID faction within the party.  That makes it all the more bizarre that he isn't even considering a Green vote and is so hellbent on backing the Tories.

The commenter Wee Walker made an intelligent point on an earlier thread - he pointed out that the party Campbell now supports is, if credible sources are to believed, seriously considering withdrawing the United Kingdom from the European Convention on Human Rights.  That is an extremist position that no other non-Faragist party of any significance would ever contemplate, and would put Britain in line with Russia and Belarus.  So let me put this question.  Even if you're so obsessed with the trans issue that you think it's more important than self-determination for your country, or than social justice and tackling poverty, surely to God you don't think it's worth abandoning human rights over?  Without the ECHR, all bets would be off - the death penalty could come back, there would be no protection against torture, minorities could be persecuted, workers' rights would be called into question, etc, etc, etc.  No individual issue weighs more heavily than all of that.  (Admittedly, Campbell's recent retweet history implies that he is - at the very least - not unsympathetic to a specific trans prisoner being put to death in Ohio, so maybe I'm asking a stupid question.)

Campbell finishes his twenty-first consecutive trans-flavoured post with the question: "What's happening to our country?"  Well, which country do you mean - England, or the UK?  Either way, much of the answer goes back to the door of the Tory government in London - which you're planning to vote for, Stuart.  And if you think the Tories can't make things any worse, just sit back and watch the results of your own handiwork.

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26 comments:

  1. Your're way behind the times, James. Campbell has just published his *twenty-second* trans post in a row!

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    1. Seriously? Jeez, I'd better go back and check whether he posted about trans on Christmas Day. Bet he did. What a boring man. Same for all the fanatics who spend their lives posting about this boring subject on Wings. You're just as boring as he is.

      To all the trans-obsessed bores on Wings - will you please just GET A LIFE.

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    2. Boring, without a doubt, but above all else Wings has turned into a nuthouse. Campbell has so obviously lost the plot, lost it totally, and yet they're all nodding along as if his behaviour is normal. I've never seen anything quite like it.

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    3. Campbell is on his way to being awarded an MBE.

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  2. Meanwhile Sturgeon and her weak-willed associates are happy to play their part as patsies in the Westminster game. They have no fight for the cause and Westminster and the msm kens it.

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  3. It is only a one hour drive from Bath to Cheltenham.

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    1. 1 hour 1 minute, and 54.8 miles, according to Google.

      Stick with Scot Goes Pop, folks, for all the best travel tips.

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  4. I remember when the same people used seat belts, smoking ban, alcohol legislation, black people, homosexuality and other excuses against the modernisation of outdated ideologies
    These people will behave this way against anything they can use against those they wish to oppress or turn to their political advantage
    They'll be demanding those who are not them wear yellow stars on their clothing next, oh, they've already done that, maybe they want to bring back those good old days we ended up fighting a world war over, gypsies next is it?

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  5. James - I sometimes think that you might be giving Stu Campbell's 'influence' a lot more credibility than it actually deserves. The anti-SNP propaganda that he has been punting out for a fairly long time now was no more than the Daily Wail and Daily Suppress had been doing during much of the same time and its impact has been minimal. The GRR 'stooshie' will blow over and the thing that matters more and impacts upon most people, ie the economy, will become the focal point. Anyone who thinks that Scottish voters are going to take Campbell's advice and vote for the tory party that has been causing them economic misery is well wide of the mark. As Obama said many years ago, "It's the economy, stupid"! When the time comes that's what will matter more than any other issue.

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    1. Oh I agree that Campbell has little or no influence with the general public (although whether he realises that himself is doubtful). We're talking about a few hundred people, or a few thousand at the absolute most. But as some of them were previously committed Yes activists, I'm not sure it's irrelevant if those people change sides. Anything that weakens the Yes campaign or takes its fizz away is potentially very damaging.

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    2. I really do not see anyone who is genuinely committed to Scottish independence being swayed away from it by Campbell or the GRR issue itself. I do get why some people are annoyed by the GRR and also my party (the SNP), but in the cold light of day I think that the impact of energy costs after April accompanied by significantly increased mortgages is going to annoy them a great deal more. I also don't think that being told to vote tory by a man who is based in Bath and who has no intention of returning to Scotland is going to have too much impact.

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  6. I’ve been voting SNP with a clothes peg on my nose for a good few years (started when Grousebeater got suspended for nothing at all). As James says I only do this because Indy is my top priority. To keep doing it I could do with some indication that the SNP also agree that Indy is the top priority. Right now it I do begin to wonder if the whole thing is a piss take from them?

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  7. Is it time to send out a search party for IFS? I'm getting worried about him.

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  8. "perhaps we should run a sweepstake on when Campbell will next publish a post that is NOT about the trans issue"

    I genuinely think that may not happen until well into March, so we could be looking at 50+ Wings articles in a row about trans people.

    As for when Campbell will go public with his call for people to vote Tory, I don't think he'll wait until election day itself (as he did in 2021), but he might hold off until just a handful of days before.

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  9. The UK is not a country it is a unitary state, if that helps clarify your question.

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    1. And you think Campbell's new party recognises that distinction, do you? Probably not.

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    2. without a written constitution i'm not sure we can really precisely say what the UK is other than a constitutional monarchy. Given the Supreme court verdict it does seem to be a unitiary state however this is new. If it's a unitiary rather than federal state, it's much closer to a country than anything else. There is no legal definition of country that shows the UK is or is not one definitively.

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    3. The UK is a unitary state, whether a 'country or not it certainly not a nation. A unitary state without a written, codified constitution, instead it has a rag-bag of laws and traditions. An unelected upper house of Parliament, and an unelected Head of State, who by law, has to be a Protestant. Oh and a central democracy where a party getting 47% of the votes at the last General Election gets an 80 seat majority.

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  10. Seems to me that the moment that Campbell finally crossed the line into believing that he is a spurned messiah was the remarkable success of his last financial appeal.
    He's quite analytical and probably understood that much of his support came from the obsessive element of the anti GRR sect. Sect in the sense of a political sub group that raises it's own sectional interests above those of the main cause, in this case independence, ironically just like the pro GRR Sturgeon sect.
    As cultists so often do he has decided that being lauded by the 'faithful' is better than fighting against the 'wilfull stupidity' of those who don't agree with him. Having pulled a surprising amount of cash from his acolytes (and who knows who else) he's now enjoying 'walking on the water ' of his own wee muddy puddle. Simples, but sad, for one who used to be a powerful voice in our movement.
    We can't ignore him completely but we really ought to be finding ways to reduce the amount of our 'band width' that we give him.

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  11. Your post does sound conspiratorial but if you listen to the bbc podcast about the Qanon influence of the capital riots, it becomes arguable power brokers are feeding the culture war machine for their own ends. Gabriel Gatehouse goes right back to the beginnings of conspiracy theories with surprising protagonists apparently feeding the frenzy surreptitiously. It's a good podcast as it doesn't go at it from one side, there are faults on both left and right. Anyway, I digress.

    What happens in America can morph into a UK phenomenon quickly in the internet age. We've gone from talking about pensions/currency to furries (a word I had and still did not need to know). The QAnon story has changed to "grooming" and an evil regime wanting access to kids. It's insane but there are seemingly intelligent people being taken in by this. I think we're seeing our own version now in Scotland. If you look at Wings BTL comments, there are loads making nod, nod, wink, wink suggestions about Scottish politicians. In fact, Stuart Campbell is doing it himself dropping names in at various points of his weaving rants tenuously linking awful/sick people with elected officials. There are legitimate issues with the Trans bill but I sense a tiny but increasingly louder minority are starting to equate the SNP as evil, a disgrace, deviant, disgusting, nonce. That "the Globalists" "capture" small countries first (New Zealand, Scotland, Finland) as part of their "ends". I see this insane view percolating out at an alarming rate since the turn of the year. I can't believe I'm saying this but am I alone in noting this?

    It's not that these people are significant in number versus the population but can have an influence on the grassroots. Let's face it, we're going to need a grassroots movement in the face of a wall to our agreed referendum hopes. I feel all of this is a way to demoralise and turn the movement.

    I cannot believe I am saying this but I now believe Wings is being used to feed this chaos to attempt to stamp out unity in the independence movement for good. I hope we can get out of it but this type of culture war is a bottomless pit and such a waste of energy.

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  12. Panelbase poll in the field. Possibly multiple clients as there's lots of general questions about Scottish politics including the variations of referendum / de facto referendum (e.g. "If there was a UK General Election (Westminster) held tomorrow and the SNP and other pro-independence supporting parties stood on a manifesto pledge to begin negotiations with the UK government for Scotland to become an independent country, who would you vote for?") - but also a lot about self ID, and policies around health/transport/EU. Will be really interesting to see the results if they are made public.

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    1. Campbell himself was talking on Twitter recently about commissioning a new poll, but we can safely assume he wouldn't bother asking about "health/transport/EU". He's only interested in one subject (and it's not independence). So yes, it could be multi-client. I would normally assume the Sunday Times is a big part of it, but didn't they commission this weekend's YouGov poll?

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  13. The problem that I have is not the GRR bill. I think that's just the straw that broke the camel's back for many. I have been finding that I've been having to hold my nose increasingly firmly throughout Sturgeon's tenure and whilst it might be possible to hold it even tighter if I still felt that the SNP were genuinely pushing as hard as they could for independence, I just don't see it any more. Why should I vote for a party I dislike if the reason I'm voting for them no longer seems to exist? People keep saying the SNP are the only realistic vehicle for achieving independence but that's only true if they're actually going to try to do that, and I'm really not sure any more that they are.

    Now, I may have my issues with Alba, but I seriously hope that they stand a candidate in my constituency because they're the only party that I can in all conscience give my vote to.

    Oh, and as for the idea of voting for a Unionist party, no, nope, no way, not ever. I have only made one vow in my life, and that was to never, under any circumstances, vote Tory.

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  14. James is concerned Campbell might take the 'fizz' out of the indy campaign. I haven't seen any 'fizz' for a long time now which is (I suspect) how NS likes it.

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    1. So perhaps NS and Campbell should get a room.

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