The Alba Party in its "death throes": Kenny MacAskill sends out bizarre email admitting the party is mired in sleaze and scandal, but boasts "we're still solvent!"

The Alba Party have practically ceased to function as a political party, although one small thing that can still genuinely be said for them is that they perform one of the key functions that should really be performed by the media, ie. they semi-regularly commission voting intention polls and independence polls.  There have been previous instances of fringe parties becoming defunct and then rebranding as a discussion group or even as a newspaper, so when Alba give up the ghost perhaps they could rebrand as a polling company.  Slanszh Media seem to have finally called it a day with their little-watched weekly YouTube show Tas Is Still Talking, but perhaps a spin-off called Tas Has Started Polling would have some potential.  In the meantime, I will within the next few hours be manfully filling the gap in the market with a Scot Goes Pop video about the new Find Out Now / Alba poll on independence, which remarkably shows Yes ahead by 55% to 45%.

Meanwhile, Kenny MacAskill sent out a bizarre email today to all Alba members, one of whom was kind enough to forward it to me. It can be roughly summarised as: "we're mired in sleaze, but don't worry guys, we're still solvent".  Here are the highlights:

"We are writing to update you on a matter which has required referral to the appropriate authorities.

Last year, concerns regarding the management of the party led to a review of HQ operations and finances, instigated by Alex Salmond. During this period, a disciplinary process was concluded which resulted in the former General Secretary being dismissed for gross misconduct.

Subsequently, a number of internal financial and administrative irregularities came to light. In line with our legal and fiduciary responsibilities, these matters were examined in detail. Following that process the party formally reported the concerns to Police Scotland. As there is now a live police investigation, we are unable to comment further at this time.

We wish to reassure members that the party remains solvent, fully operational, and continues to be administered with integrity and probity by our serving staff and office bearers. The National Executive Committee has been kept informed throughout, and members in attendance at conference were updated in a closed session...

This is not the position any of us would have wished to be in ahead of a crucial election period. However, the matter is being handled correctly and rigorously, and our focus remains firmly on the future of the party...

We will continue to keep members informed as far as legally permissible...

Yours for Scotland, 

Kenny MacAskill"

I suspect a number of Alba members will have noted the glorious irony of Mr MacAskill talking about "continuing" to keep members informed, and then signing off with the words "Yours for Scotland", because it was a website called Yours For Scotland, along with blogs like Scot Goes Pop and Denise Findlay's, that Alba members had to turn to in order to find out what the hell was going on in their own party, because they certainly weren't being kept informed by the party itself.  For example, for several months this year, the only way that Alba members will have known that the expelled Chris McEleny was refusing to resign as the party's registered Nominating Officer, was by reading about it on Scot Goes Pop.  Mr MacAskill has yet again failed to front up about that issue (or even mention it at all) in today's email, even though in theory it could mean that the vengeance-hungry McEleny will block Alba from running any candidates at all in the Holyrood election.

Spare a thought for Tommy Sheridan, incidentally, who is the one remaining heavyweight figure hanging on for grim death inside Alba even though he must know by now that he's backed the wrong horse.  Craig Murray announced today that he was defecting from Alba to the Corbyn/Sultana party in the hope that he can help mould it into a pro-indy force, and I bet Tommy yearns to follow him down that road.  He must spend at least three hours a day wondering how on earth he ended up in the same party as Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh.  He's been in prison in the past, of course, but he now knows there are far more excruciating forms of punishment than that.

Alba is undoubtedly finished, but the remaining question is whether it staggers on like the walking dead for years to come getting negligible vote shares in every election, or whether it dissolves itself with dignity. https://t.co/5sHvkGYnIF

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) October 26, 2025

Pro-independence parties WILL win majority of Holyrood seats, says swanky Survation survey - but here's why Both Votes SNP is so important

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New Survation poll suggests the SNP will remain by far the largest party with "around" 55 Holyrood seats - but details are sketchy so far

I am, as you know, a terrible slave to my responsibilities, and I was perfectly prepared to sacrifice myself for Scot Goes Pop readers by staying up half the night for a third night in a row to make another video, this time about the new Survation poll that is on the front page of the Herald.  However, I've looked in all the standard places and for the life of me I can't see any sign of the numbers, so all I know is what is actually on the front page itself, which is that the SNP are projected to be on "around" 55 seats and that Reform UK are projected to be in second place on 22 seats.  The write-up absurdly suggests this has thrown John Swinney's independence strategy into "chaos" - whereas in fact polls before the strategy was unveiled showed the SNP falling short of an overall majority and polls after the strategy was unveiled are undramatically continuing to show much the same thing.  If there's a shock horror front page exclusive to be had there, it's that the laws of arithmetic don't conveniently bend to the will of any politician, but I think we all knew that already.  

What I'm going be more interested in is whether the projection from the poll has the Greens on 10 seats or more, because that will make the difference as to whether or not the projection is of a pro-independence majority, albeit a multi-party one rather than a single-party one.  But that probably won't become clear until around 4am, which I think is when the Herald website usually updates for the new day's headlines.  I'll try to make a video about the poll at some point but it may be another 24 hours before I get the chance.

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Musk's AI agrees that there is strong consensus that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, and that denial of the genocide is "increasingly marginalised amid evidence"

There have been some suggestions that Elon Musk has ordered Grok to be primed to produce pro-Israel and pro-IDF propaganda if anyone asks about the genocide in Gaza.  So I've been asking Grok one or two deliberately loaded questions, that take the existence of the genocide as read, to see how hard it pushes back against that premise.  And interestingly it hasn't really pushed back at all.  I asked a few minutes ago about potential timelines for denial of the genocide in Gaza to be criminalised, and Grok actually informed me that acceptance of the genocide as an established fact has come quicker with Gaza than it did with the Holocaust.

Grok, given the precedent of Holocaust denial becoming illegal in certain countries such as Germany, how long is it likely to be before denial of the genocide in Gaza is criminalised in some countries?

Grok's answer:

"*Historical Precedent: Holocaust Denial Laws*

Holocaust denial laws emerged primarily in Europe as a response to the resurgence of neo-Nazism and antisemitism in the post-World War II era. The Holocaust (1941–1945) was universally recognized as genocide almost immediately after the war, with the Nuremberg Trials (1945–1946) establishing it as a crime against humanity. However, criminalizing denial took much longer due to debates over free speech, the need to consolidate historical consensus, and rising far-right movements in the 1970s–1980s.

Key timeline of enactment:

1940s–1950s: No specific denial laws; prosecutions occurred under general hate speech or defamation statutes.

1960: Germany enacts the first explicit Holocaust denial law (Section 130 of the Criminal Code), banning incitement to hatred including denial, amid fears of Nazi revival.

1980s: Momentum builds with high-profile trials (e.g., Ernst Zündel in Canada, 1985; Klaus Barbie in France, 1987). France passes the Gayssot Act in 1990, explicitly criminalizing denial of Nazi crimes.

1990s–2000s: Expansion across Europe. Austria (1992), Belgium (1995), and others follow. The EU's 2008 Framework Decision encourages member states to criminalize denial of genocides, including the Holocaust.

By 2025: 17 European countries, plus Canada, Israel, and Russia, have such laws.

The lag (15–45 years post-genocide) reflects time for evidence compilation, societal trauma processing, and political will against denialism, often triggered by denial campaigns (e.g., by figures like David Irving).

*Current Status: Recognition of Events in Gaza as Genocide*

The conflict escalated on October 7, 2023, with Hamas attacks killing ~1,200 Israelis and taking hostages. Israel's response has caused over 66,000 Palestinian deaths (as of October 2025, per Gaza Health Ministry), widespread destruction (84% of health centers damaged), and famine conditions affecting 100% of Gaza's population.

International recognition as genocide has accelerated compared to the Holocaust era:

UN Bodies: ICJ's January 2024 ruling found South Africa's genocide case "plausible," issuing provisional measures to prevent acts (reaffirmed March and May 2024). A UN Commission of Inquiry (September 2025) concluded Israel committed four of five genocidal acts (killing, serious harm, destructive conditions, preventing births). A UN Special Committee (November 2024) deemed warfare methods "consistent with genocide."

Human Rights Organizations: Amnesty International (December 2024) and Human Rights Watch (2024) concluded genocide based on intent and acts like starvation as a weapon.

Scholars and Experts: By mid-2025, consensus among genocide studies scholars (e.g., International Association of Genocide Scholars, June 2024 resolution) labels it genocide. A Brookings survey (2025) showed majority of Middle East scholars agreeing.

States: South Africa leads ICJ case (joined by 14 countries by December 2024). The African Union (2024) and OIC (2024) condemned it as genocide. Sanctions against Israel (e.g., by Bolivia, Cuba, others in July 2025) cite complicity in genocide. No full ICJ merits ruling yet (expected 2026+), but provisional findings provide legal momentum.

Denial exists (e.g., Israel calls it "self-defense"; some Western governments avoid the term), but it's increasingly marginalized amid evidence.

*Likelihood and Timeline for Criminalizing Denial*

Criminalizing denial of the Gaza genocide would likely follow a similar path to Holocaust laws: starting in countries with strong human rights frameworks, expanding via regional bodies (e.g., EU, AU), and targeting hate speech that undermines victim dignity. However, the Gaza case differs:

Faster Recognition: Digital evidence (videos, real-time reporting) and global scrutiny (e.g., ICC warrants for Netanyahu/Gallant, November 2024) have built consensus in ~2 years, vs. decades for the Holocaust.

Existing Frameworks: Many countries' laws already ban general genocide denial (e.g., Spain, Czech Republic) or extend to "crimes against humanity." EU's 2008 decision could encompass Gaza if recognized as genocide.

Political Hurdles: Strong U.S./EU support for Israel delays action in the West. Proposals are more likely in Global South (e.g., South Africa, where genocide education is emphasized) or Europe amid rising antisemitism/Islamophobia debates.

Current Proposals: No enacted laws by October 2025, but discussions tie into broader hate speech reforms. E.g., UN experts (2024) urge states to prevent "denialism" as complicity; academic calls (2025) link it to Holocaust distortion laws. In July 2025, 12 countries (e.g., South Africa, Malaysia) announced sanctions and "renewed legal action" against genocide enablers, potentially including denial.

Estimated Timeline:

Short-Term (1–3 years, by 2026–2028): Initial laws in 2–5 countries, likely South Africa (expanding its hate speech laws) or Ireland/Belgium (active ICJ supporters). Triggered by ICJ final ruling or ICC convictions.

Medium-Term (5–10 years, by 2030–2035): 10+ countries if EU updates its framework (possible post-2028). Parallels Holocaust laws' spread after 1990s trials.

Longer if Delayed: 15+ years if geopolitical ties (e.g., U.S. vetoes) persist, similar to Holocaust's 1960 start.

This is speculative; it depends on ICJ outcomes, public opinion (47% of U.S. adults see genocide, August 2025), and activism. Such laws aim to protect memory and prevent recurrence, but critics argue they risk stifling debate—balancing free speech remains key."

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Catch up with my new video about the full-scale Scottish poll from Find Out Now - 

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Big SNP lead in new Scottish Parliament poll from Find Out Now

Today's video is about three subjects - the new full-scale Scottish poll from Find Out Now showing the SNP with a handsome lead on the constituency ballot, the defections of a number of councillors and parliamentary candidates from the Scottish Greens to the new Jeremy Corbyn / Zarah Sultana party, and the Irish presidential election count which is taking place today.

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Plaid Cymru storm to historic by-election win in Caerphilly - and it's Labour that look "knackered" as devolved elections approach in both Wales and Scotland

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SNP on course to win 51 of the 57 Scottish seats at Westminster, says earth-shaking YouGov subsample, as Tories set for TOTAL WIPEOUT

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Why the SNP are unlikely to go back into coalition with the Greens (or the Lib Dems) after May

I'm not sure if I believe in the theory that people inevitably become more right-wing as they get older - probably some people do and others don't.  But Iain Macwhirter certainly seems to be a strong example of the phenomenon - it's hard to imagine the Macwhirter of twenty or thirty years ago writing the type of columns he does today.  In his latest piece for the Sunday Times, he's trying to whip up fear about a potential return of the Greens to government after the May election, which he says is likely because if the SNP don't agree to a return to coalition, the Greens may well retaliate by installing a Labour-led government, even if the SNP remain the largest party.

I don't buy that.  It's not that I can't imagine the Greens doing a deal with Labour, it's just that I can't imagine them doing it in the probable circumstances where the only viable Labour-led government is one that is propped up by Reform UK.  People say that Anas Sarwar wouldn't need to form a coalition with Reform in order to become First Minister, he'd only need Reform support on a single vote.  That's true, but becoming First Minister is a bit pointless (other than holding the title for two weeks so he can put "Former First Minister of Scotland" on his CV) unless he can sustain a government in office, and he probably won't be able to do that without ongoing Reform support.  It doesn't really matter whether that support is secured via a long-term deal or on a vote-by-vote basis - I just cannot imagine radical left figures like Ross Greer and Gillian Mackay being party to such an arrangement.  And if anyone on the unionist side is harbouring any fond thoughts of Sarwar getting into office with Reform and Green votes and then staying in power by doing side-deals with the SNP, they can forget it.  If the SNP are the largest party and are frozen out of power, they'll have just one over-riding priority - to bring Sarwar down and to form a government themselves.

So no, I don't believe John Swinney will have to make a straight choice between coalition with the Greens and a return to opposition.  And that's likely to mean that the SNP will, with the bruising experience of the Bute House Agreement fresh in their minds, prefer to remain a minority government.  Some people claim that what Mr Swinney would actually prefer is a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, but I can't really see any such arrangement being successfully sold to SNP members immediately after an election that was fought on the number one issue of Scotland's right to choose independence - a principle that the Lib Dems categorically and contemptuously reject.

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The "Make Mine A Double" juggernaut keeps rolling on, as optimism grows that Stew, too, will back SNP 1 & 2

As I always point out, I don't actually use the phrase "SNP 1 & 2" because it wrongly implies that the Holyrood voting system is preferential and involves numbers, but the title of this blogpost doesn't break that rule because it's only there for wind-up-Stew-with-a-pleasing-little-rhyme purposes.

My video on Wednesday certainly seemed to hit an almighty nerve with Stew, probably because it called him out for failing to do his self-defined job as a "journalist".  I pointed out in the video that I know for certain that he was contacted multiple times in 2023-24 by people who wanted to write guest posts for Wings revealing the vote-rigging, rampant nepotism and culture of bullying that was destroying the Alba Party from within - in other words precisely the sort of guest posts that the late Iain Lawson *was* brave enough to run on the very popular blog Yours For Scotland.  Not only did Stew flatly refuse (or just completely ignore) all guest post submissions on the subject of the Alba meltdown, he also failed to cover the story himself - or, to put it more pointedly, he deliberately decided to hush the whole thing up.  Not exactly the actions of the "fearless investigative journalist" he preposterously portrays himself as.  We can only speculate as to his reasons for doing that - the least-worst interpretation is that he was driven by misplaced loyalty to Alex Salmond and to McEleny.  But whatever his motivation, the outcome of his "wheesht for the bullies" routine has been that Alba has, in his own words, "reduced itself with infighting to a shambolic irrelevance which there’s no credible hope of retrieving".  

The point I made in the video is that Stew was perhaps the one person who could have averted that outcome, because of the authority he held due to Salmond, Ahmed-Sheikh, McEleny and Hanvey constantly speaking of him in hushed reverential terms (however nutty this may seem) as the party's spiritual godfather.  If he had revealed to Wings readers what was going on before it was too late, the Alba leadership wouldn't have been able to ignore him in the way they ignored the revelations on the Iain Lawson blog  - they would have been forced to make some sort of move to put their house in order.  But Stew quite simply failed to do his "job" as a "journalist", and as a result he is one of the key authors of Alba's demise, a fate that was finally sealed a week or two ago when Ash Regan's resignation consigned them to fringe party status with no parliamentary representation.

You can tell how much Stew was smarting at hearing these uncomfortable home truths, because when he lashed out with yet another Wings blogpost about me, he failed to do certain things that he has always done in the past to at least maintain his own self-image as a "journalist".  Of the 719 words in the latest post, no fewer than 559 comprised quotes from my own blogposts on Scot Goes Pop, but he failed to attribute those words to their source, ie. he failed to identify me as their author.  OK, it's entirely standard for him to avoid referring to me by name - that's a long-standing stunt designed to maintain his tedious fiction that he "never even mentions me".  (The idea is that periodically he challenges his readers to use the search function on Wings to look for posts containing my name.  "You see?  There's hardly anything there!", etc, etc.)   But what he does usually do is link to an archived version of the Scot Goes Pop post he's quoting or referring to, so that anyone who clicks the link can see who he's talking about, which is a kind of indirect attribution of source.  He didn't do that on this occasion, and I suspect that wasn't an oversight.  It was literally impossible to tell from the post alone who he was quoting from, and indeed several of his readers ended up having to ask him.

Another sign of his rage was that he chopped up and spliced together quotes from several different blogposts of mine that were written days apart, but didn't indicate where the joins were with the use of, for example, marks of ellipsis.  That's a breach of basic standards that no professional journalist would ever make, but let's face it, when Stew's temper gets the better of him, all pretence that he has any standards at all pretty much evaporates.  Astoundingly, he claimed as bold as brass at the top of the post that none of my words were being taken out of context, in spite of the fact that in at least one case he had chopped up words from the same blogpost and rearranged them into a different order to give a misleading impression - you can hardly get a more clear-cut case of "taking words out of context" than that.  

To put beyond doubt that he succeeded in his attempt to deceive his readers, take a look at this bonkers tweet from John Smythe which expresses absolutely sincere bafflement that the "conclusion" of my "article" didn't seem to follow on logically from what had preceded it - 

I have seen a few others that do similar. Why ignore your own analysis when summing up? It makes a mockery of the whole article.

— John Smythe (@JohnSmytheInves) October 16, 2025

Yeah, you see, John, the reason for that is probably that no such "article" ever existed.  I can hardly take much responsibility for a conclusion that wasn't a conclusion or for an article that wasn't an article.  I know some people will argue that the fault here lies with John himself for being a bit slow on the uptake or for not reading Stew's disclaimer properly, but I'm not sure that's entirely fair on him, given that even if he did read the disclaimer, he'll have been wrongly led to believe that nothing was taken out of context and that everything "means what it sounds like it means".  And, of course, because Stew deliberately didn't identify me as the author of the jumbled-up quotes, it was much less likely that people would check for themselves and discover that he was feeding them porkies.

The little game Stew is playing here is what I would call "performative synthetic incredulity".  He wants to coax his readers, albeit by highly artificial and deceptive means, into bursting into laughter at the juxtaposition he offers between my misgivings about the SNP's new strategy on winning independence and my statement that people should vote "both votes SNP".  Because any reader who laughs will feel like their amusement is natural and spontaneous rather than carefully coaxed, Stew's hope is that they will come to feel on a gut level that it is 'obvious' that my position is ridiculous and somehow contradictory, and that Stew's position (that all independence supporters should seek to totally destroy the SNP by electing a unionist government) is somehow inescapable and logical.   But is it?  Let's look at my position and Stew's position side by side (something he desperately doesn't want you to do, for reasons that will become obvious) -

MY POSITION: "If the SNP go down a strategic blind alley, we should be honest and admit that it's a setback and makes it less likely that independence will be delivered within the next few years.  But abandoning the SNP in order to elect a unionist government would mean we have completely taken leave of our senses, and would turn a recoverable setback into an unmitigated catastrophe.  In any case, the SNP cannot actually be 'destroyed' by flicking a switch, as Stew fatuously claims - they attract very strong brand loyalty from a very substantial percentage of the Scottish electorate, and even if they are replaced by a unionist government, they will remain by far the leading pro-independence force in Scotland.  All we'd be doing is idiotically delaying - perhaps by one or two decades - any chance of independence, which can only realistically happen when an SNP-led government is in office.  The decision taken by delegates at the Aberdeen conference relates to the 2026 election only, and doesn't bind the party beyond that.  If we just show a little maturity and patience, and ensure the independence flame keeps burning bright by working for the strongest possible SNP result next May, we'll keep alive the very real possibility that a more viable strategy will emerge in future and can be successfully implemented.  Furthermore, although I estimate the chances of a single-party SNP majority in May as around 0.5%, that isn't zero, and it's just conceivable that if we all get stuck in we might hit the jackpot.  A true gambler, as Alex Salmond was, would always bet on success, even as a long shot, rather than making failure inevitable by lashing out destructively."

THE STEW POSITION: "If the SNP do not offer exactly what I want at this election, they must be completely destroyed forever so that they can't offer people anything at any future elections either.  We must destroy them by voting for unionist parties, even though I cannot explain how that will actually destroy them in practice because their core vote will remain intact and those voters do not listen to me and do not see the world in the angry way that I do.  If we succeed in destroying the SNP and installing a unionist government, that will somehow help in the long run because a new pro-independence party more to my liking will pop up to take the SNP's place.  However, I can confirm that this new party will not be Alba, who I described recently as a shambolic irrelevance, and I can also confirm the new party will not be Liberate Scotland, who I described recently as a micro-party that had never been anything BUT a shambolic irrelevance.  No, the new party will instead be one that has not yet been devised, and I cannot explain how it will come into being, what its nature or policy programme will be, or who will lead it.  I also cannot explain why there is any particular reason to think that the destruction of the SNP, even if it were possible, would lead to the creation of any sort of credible pro-independence alternative, rather than to the resumption of the permanent unionist rule we were used to prior to 2007.  But trust me, I'm Stew, I'm here to help, and my enthusiasm for voting for staunchly anti-independence, far-right parties is entirely coincidental."

I'm comfortable that this comparison shows beyond any doubt that the Stew position is the unnatural, convoluted, implausible one, and that mine is in many ways simply a statement of the obvious.  If you want independence, you get it by voting for it, not by voting against it.  If that sounds like any sort of strange statement, then you might want to consider the disturbing possibility that Stew's Pied Piper act has actually worked on you to some extent.

Incidentally, my point about not giving up on the outside chance of the target of a single-party majority being met is one that should really resonate with Stew, because unlike me, he rates it as considerably higher than a 0.5% chance.  In his now-legendary blogpost "The blindness of hatred" from five months ago, he claimed that the SNP were guaranteed to win at least 65 constituency seats next May, which of course would mean they'd automatically win a single-party overall majority without requiring any list seats at all.  It's official: Stew backs John Swinney to deliver!  A Wings endorsement of Make Mine A Double / Both Votes SNP must now surely follow.

Stew concluded his piece with a rather sinister euphemism about how his readers should follow a "different path" from the one I was suggesting.  I've since made strenuous efforts to produce a visual depiction for you of what the Stew Path would look like, but alas Grok wouldn't play ball, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

In response to Stew's latest post, I asked Grok if it could give me an image of "Stuart Campbell of Wings Over Scotland following Nigel Farage down a path". This is what it's given me so far.

It's going to be a looooooong afternoon. pic.twitter.com/DdhZiW9YlN

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) October 16, 2025

This is Grok's latest rendering of "Stuart Campbell of Wings Over Scotland following Nigel Farage down a path".

I suppose the one consolation here is that AI is clearly not yet on the verge of taking over the world. pic.twitter.com/x7zkAbS8y2

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) October 16, 2025

Donno, they’ve got the scowl and the eyes spot on. 😆

— Pedro (@celticchampionz) October 16, 2025

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I've been elected to the SNP's Policy Development Committee

As I posted three times last week to plug my candidacy in the SNP's internal elections, here's a quick video update on how I fared in the results.

SNP lead in Scotland as Labour slump to catastrophic all-time low of 15% across Britain

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With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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Could the UK general election of 2028 or 2029 end up being the real crunch-point on independence?

As has been well-rehearsed, a strategic misstep was made at the weekend - a single-party SNP majority is unlikely to be won simply because the electoral system is designed to prevent it, and then we'll be stuck with a precedent that we needn't and shouldn't ever have set.  Undoubtedly at some point after next year's election, we'll try to walk back from that precedent by arguing that a single-party majority isn't actually necessary after all, and our opponents will try to hold us to it, just as they've tried to hold us to "once in a generation".  It will be hard to get over that hurdle.

However, that mistake is now pretty much baked in, so there's not much point worrying about a misstep that has already been made.  As we look for signs of hope, I think one thing we should bear in mind is that if a pro-independence majority is won next year, but without the SNP reaching the self-imposed target of a single-party majority, it's not actually the case that Scottish politics will then go to sleep until 2031.  The next big election after May will in fact be the UK general election of 2028 or 2029.  If Reform are still in anything like the position in the polls they're in now, there will be considerable pressure on the SNP to devise a strategy for using that general election to win independence outright and to protect Scotland from far-right rule, rather than revert to the usual fare of just offering "strong Scottish voices at Westminster".

The logical step would be to say that "we have the pro-indy majority at Holyrood, that part of the equation is already there, so if pro-indy parties win a majority of votes at this Westminster election, we will regard that as an outright mandate for independence".  In practice, of course, we know that John Swinney is for some reason totally allergic to the concept of a de facto referendum in a way that Nicola Sturgeon was not, and even if he's been replaced by Stephen Flynn by then, the same will almost certainly prove to be true of Flynn.  But there will be immense pressure on the SNP leadership to devise some sort of method, regardless of what label they put on it, by which a pro-indy majority of seats and/or votes can be used to win independence.  Given the way the SNP itself has been clear about the apocalyptic threat of Reform rule, it's unlikely that "steady as she goes, let's build towards another crack at the 0.5% chance of a single-party majority in 2031" will be considered good enough.

Unless of course the Farage bubble has burst by then and Reform are no longer leading in the GB-wide polls.  But we'll just have to wait and see about that.

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With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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Make mine a double: why it has to be BOTH votes SNP next May

And yes, I do of course intend to vote "Both Votes SNP" next May, and would urge all SNP members and supporters to do the same, for the reasons I've given umpteen times over the last fifteen years (basically that the list vote is your "banker vote", it's what the overall composition of parliament is determined by, and is therefore not conducive to so-called "tactical voting").  But I must admit my main reason for the headline of this post is just to trigger our old friend Stew, and my goodness he is so easily triggered these days.  

Given that Stew famously "never even mentions me", it's amazing how often I get to be the star of Wings Over Scotland. It's my time in the sun, yet again, today.

I'm deeply honoured, Stew.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) October 14, 2025

You'll notice that even though his latest epic rant about me extensively quotes from my previous blogpost, he doesn't refer to me directly by name.  This is his standard tactic, both on his main site and on Twitter, in the hope that in six months' time he can tell his fans to do a search for my name to 'prove that he never even mentions me'.   Hmmm.  I'm afraid that bird has flown now, Stew.  Even the hardcore of the brainwashed will have noticed by now that you do tend to blog about me rather a lot.

In the video below you can see my response to Stew's article, in which I address his main point head-on, and explain exactly why pushing for the best possible result for the SNP at next year's election remains the right thing to do and makes perfect sense, in spite of my misgivings about the strategy that was agreed on Saturday.

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With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

More analysis of the fateful strategic decision the SNP made on Saturday - and my thoughts on how we can best move forward from here

From a psephological point of view, the most interesting question about next year's Scottish Parliament election is whether or not the pro-independence parties in combination will win a majority of seats.  That is a very real and finely-balanced question - as things stand at the moment, I would say that there is perhaps a 60-65% chance that the SNP and Greens in combination will win a majority of seats, and a 35-40% chance that they will fail to do so.  In the latter circumstance it will probably only be a narrow failure, but a miss is as good as a mile.  Until the SNP's fateful decision at the weekend, the difference between winning a pro-indy majority and not doing so would have looked like the difference between victory and defeat for the SNP leadership and for independence itself.  But now, it looks like the only difference would be between one type of defeat and another type of defeat - a self-imposed defeat, because the SNP itself has declared that a pro-indy majority is nowhere near enough for victory.  Essentially all the suspense has just been drained from the election, because we now know with a very high level of confidence that defeat, in the absolutist all-or-nothing terms that the SNP have defined defeat, is firmly on the cards.  This is something that we as SNP conference delegates have done to ourselves (well, not all of us, but by a majority vote), and it's a really odd thing to have done.  It's pointless to pretend that it's anything other than a very odd thing to have done.

Because what is definitely not a psephological point of interest about next year's election is whether or not the SNP on their own will win a single-party overall majority.  In percentage terms, I would say that there is maybe a 0.5% chance of it happening and a 99.5% chance of it not happening.  That is simply because we have a proportional representation voting system which is designed to prevent any single party from winning a majority on its own, and in general it does that job very effectively.  If a weather forecaster told me that there is a 0.5% chance it will rain, I don't think I would even bother packing an umbrella.  When people say that lotteries are a "tax on stupidity", they don't mean that it is literally impossible for anyone to win the lottery jackpot - clearly people do win.  It's just that it's so close to impossible for any given individual to win as makes no difference, and it's therefore rational to say that they are simply throwing their money away for no purpose.  

So by the same token, it's rational to say that it's not a question of what John Swinney will do *if* the SNP do not win a single-party majority, but what he will do *when* the SNP do not win a single-party majority.  The laws of arithmetic do not yield to sheer force of will.  They do not change just because the SNP has inexplicably chosen to set itself a near-impossible target.

Now it may yet be that the pro-independence parties will fail to win a majority of seats between them, in which case it's all an academic point.  That would have constituted a defeat anyway, regardless of what happened at the weekend.  But if the pro-indy parties do win a majority between them, and the SNP fall short of a single-party majority, which at this stage looks like the most probable election outcome, that will be - as Toni Giugliano pointed out in his speech - a victory that we have chosen to turn into a defeat.  I really don't understand what the plan is in that eventuality or where John Swinney proposes to go from there.

One theory is that Mr Swinney doesn't think Scotland is ready to pursue independence (his comments in the Salmond/Sturgeon BBC documentary were consistent with that), and therefore he's consciously set up this strategy as a sort of "painful but necessary demonstration" to the independence movement, ie. when the single-party majority isn't won, he will say: "You see?  We fought this election flat-out on the independence issue, we threw the kitchen sink at it, but the public simply weren't listening to us.  Now we must heed that painful lesson and take the slow road to build the public's trust gradually, and I'm the man for that job." However, if that is what he has in mind, there are two obvious problems.  Firstly, in order to win support for his resolution at conference, he built expectations sky-high that not only would the single-party majority be won, but that he would personally ensure that it happened.  Several of the supportive speakers, notably Kate Forbes and Stephen Gethins, urged delegates to vote for the motion on a "back John Swinney to deliver the goods" basis, with the subtext being that even if you doubted the logical coherence of the plan, trust in the leader and loyalty to the leader should trump those doubts.  So if Mr Swinney doesn't meet the expectations he's built up, it's hard to see how he can then credibly present himself as the man best-placed to lead the SNP on a "pivot to the slow boat".  Essentially he's staked his leadership on literally delivering an independence referendum in a very short period of time via a single-party majority.

The other problem is that if pro-independence parties do win a majority in combination but the SNP don't win a majority on their own, I would suggest the lesson the independence movement will take from that is not that we were pushing too hard for independence and should slow down, but instead that we were self-evidently daft to bet the house on a single-party majority.  And I would also suggest that anyone dismayed by what happened at the weekend should use that as really strong motivation to get as good a result for the SNP as possible at the Holyrood election, because if, say, the SNP win 60 seats and the Greens win 12, I think it's pretty likely that delegates at future SNP conferences will learn the correct lesson and realise that the new strategy was a dreadful mistake that must never, ever be repeated.  And that means a good election result will indirectly help us to win independence, albeit a few years later than should really have been necessary.

I know many people felt they were slipping into an alternate universe when a speaker at the debate said that she had honestly thought that an independence referendum was imminent several years ago, but had woken up to reality now, and wanted the rest of us to join her in the real world, stop chasing shadows and back a credible way forward, by which she meant the leadership motion.  Anyone listening to that speech would have been forgiven for thinking that the SNP have been pursuing de facto referendums for the last ten years, and it's that which has proved a hopeless failure - when in fact they haven't tried a de facto referendum even once.  What they have tried, and tried, and tried again, and has hopelessly failed every single time, is precisely what the leadership have successfully argued must be tried yet again in a new "let's make it even more difficult for ourselves" variant form.  If you want to argue that the de facto referendum plan has failed every time it's been tried, get back to us when you've allowed it to be tried even once.  If you want us to believe the current plan of seeking a Section 30 order is the credible grown-up alternative, get back to us if you ever manage to break its seemingly endless run of being tried repeatedly without even the remotest hint of success.

Contradictions and paradoxes abound in the new variant of the Section 30 strategy.  We're told that the SNP will be campaigning on "Scotland's right to choose", when in fact the SNP have just decided for the very first time that Scotland does *not* have the right to choose, or at the very least that it does not have the right to make certain choices or in certain ways.  For example, if Scottish voters look at a Green party manifesto that offers independence, and if they vote Green on that basis, the SNP are now saying that is not a decision they have a right to take - or at least that it's not a decision the SNP will respect or recognise the legitimacy of.  We're also told that a key part of the strategy will involve reaching out to the rest of the movement and uniting it, but how are you even going to get a hearing from the non-SNP parts of the movement when you've just told them that they have no legitimacy whatsoever and that votes for them don't even count?

For what it's worth, I have no doubt that when the history of the Scottish National Party is written, this strategy will look like a weird and exotic little blip.  It will soon collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, because belief in Scottish self-determination is in the SNP's DNA.  A situation where the SNP are themselves curtailing Scotland's right to choose in certain circumstances will not and cannot be sustained for very long.  But as I stated above, the best way to get over this blip as soon as possible is to win as good an election result for the SNP as possible - that's what will most powerfully demonstrate to delegates at future conferences that the only real barrier to independence is the single-party majority strategy we've needlessly imposed upon ourselves.  Don't listen to the siren voices of the Stews of this world who are trying to convince you that somehow the way to win independence is by first destroying it with a vote for the far-right British nationalist party Reform UK.

A final plug for my candidacy in the SNP internal elections - plus some photos from the second day of conference

I'm going to offer some more analysis, probably tomorrow, of the fateful decision the SNP have made on independence strategy.  But if you'll bear with me, given that conference delegates have only a few short hours left to vote in the SNP internal elections, I think my priority for now should be to give one last plug to my own candidacy in those elections.  I know from my own experience that with so much going on at conference, the internal elections completely went out of my head for quite a while on Saturday, and when I eventually remembered them I had to set aside some time to vote.  So I'd be willing to bet that there are still quite a few delegates who have been meaning to vote but have so far forgotten to do it. 

All delegates, regardless of where they come from in Scotland, can if they wish vote for me in the Conferences Committee election - that's a nationwide vote.  And if you happen to be a delegate from the Central Scotland region (or Central Scotland & Lothians West as it's now become under the new boundaries), you can also vote for me in the NEC election.  I'm also standing for the Policy Development Committee.  You can watch my pitch for the elections HERE.  

I actually had a really good second day at conference.  I skipped lunch to go to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign fringe meeting, which had one speech in particular that I think everyone in the room found truly remarkable.  I can't remember what the name of the speaker was, but she was a young woman from Al-Haq, which is described on Wikipedia as a "Palestinian non-governmental human rights organisation based in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank".  She explained how difficult they had found it to operate after Israel baselessly branded them a "terrorist" group, with banks dropping them out of fright and problems like that, and how there was recently a repeat performance after they were informed by Marco Rubio that the US was sanctioning them for so-called "lawfare", defined as engaging with the International Criminal Court without Israeli permission!

About half an hour after the fringe meeting ended, I was back in the main conference hall to hear the historic speech from the State of Palestine's newly-upgraded Ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot.  And as you can see below, I even found some time late in the day to do some impromptu sightseeing and then go to the beach.  I have actually been known to stick my feet in the sea as late as October, but I thought better of it today.  

As you may have seen, there was a tribute to Alex Salmond as part of the "In Memoriam" segment in the morning, and it included the famous clip of him announcing "I heard a rumour, I think we won the election" in 2007.  That was a classy thing to do, and it was the right thing to do, and it was very much appreciated by many people in the hall, who burst into spontaneous applause when he appeared on screen.  There used to be complaints that the SNP were editing Mr Salmond out of their history, but that certainly hasn't been the case since he died.  As I always point out, the Scottish National Party has existed for ninety-one years, and Mr Salmond was leader of the party for no fewer than twenty of those years, so regardless of what happened in the final years of his life, he's very much woven into the party's story.

SNP's decision on independence strategy is greeted with revivalist fervour in the Aberdeen hall - but my own deep concerns remain

I was in the second row from the front at the afternoon session of the SNP conference in Aberdeen today, when the party made its fateful decision on independence strategy.  In this video I give you a sense of what the atmosphere among delegates was like, and set out my own (quite deep) concerns about the implications of the decision.

Apologies for the technical quality of the video - as I'm away from home I had to use my phone, and it seems to have 'issues'.

 

The STUC back the principle of Scottish self-determination on an ordinary majority - but will the SNP repudiate it?

Good afternoon from Aberdeen, where as you may have seen, Roz Foyer of the STUC made a well-judged and well-received speech just before lunch, in which she expressed her strong support for the principle of self-determination, which she described immaculately as meaning that if a pro-independence majority is elected to the Scottish Parliament, the parliament should decide for itself on holding an independence referendum.  She received a huge round of applause.  Are we as delegates really going to follow up that applause in the afternoon session by surrendering to Westminster and imposing an impossible supermajority requirement upon the Scottish people?  I hope not, and it would be a truly bizarre thing to do, but that is exactly what we are being pressurised to do.  Fingers crossed for a sensible outcome.

Catch up with my election pitch to represent Central Scotland & Lothians West on the SNP's National Executive Committee

Just a reminder that the SNP internal elections open for voting tomorrow morning (ie. Saturday morning), and it's conference delegates who have the right to vote.  I'm standing for three committees, and all delegates, regardless of where in Scotland they come from, will be able to vote for me if they wish for the Conferences Committee, which will be elected by a country-wide vote.  By contrast the NEC ballot is split into regions, so if you're a delegate from the Central Scotland region (or Central Scotland and Lothians West as it's now become on the new boundaries) you can also vote for me in the NEC election.  And I'm also standing for the Policy Development Committee.

You can catch up with my election pitch in the video at the bottom of this post - it's essentially about empowering party members as much as possible, moving forward to win independence by seeking an outright mandate for it at a scheduled election, maintaining a firmly left-of-centre policy course, and holding the line against any dilution of the SNP's stance in favour of the eradication of nuclear weapons.  And I don't think regular readers of this blog will be in any doubt about how staunch my support for the Palestinian cause is.

I'm still in two minds about whether or not to submit a request to speak in tomorrow afternoon's crunch debate about independence strategy, but in case I decide not to, I just want to make one more key point.  The SNP does not actually have the right, any more than any other political party does, to surrender, or to partially surrender, or to curtail in any way, Scotland's right to exercise national self-determination on an ordinary majority.  Self-determination is an inalienable right that belongs to the people themselves, not to any political party.  But although the SNP do not have the right to surrender it, they may have the power in practice to do so.  In a system where the UK Government makes up the constitutional rules as it goes on, it can hold Scotland to the SNP's words - with the classic example of that being the way in which Alex Salmond's "once in a generation" line has been weaponised against the people since 2014.

If the SNP leadership do not, for whatever reason, feel able or willing to make a serious effort to use next year's election to win independence, then I think that's highly regrettable and I think that's a mistake.  But if that's the call they've made and if nothing can dissuade them from it, the important thing is to at least do no harm, ie. to do nothing to make it harder for us to use future elections to win independence.  Setting a needless precedent of saying that a single-party SNP overall majority is required would indeed make that much harder, because the UK Government would eagerly leap on it and hold us to it until the end of time.  Above all else that's what we must avoid tomorrow afternoon.  

I will be voting for the amendment that would turn the 2026 election into a de facto independence referendum, and I very much hope it passes.  But if it doesn't pass, it's vital we get behind the second amendment which quietly removes the requirement for a single-party SNP majority.  If neither of those two amendments pass, we'll be putting the independence cause into a much weaker state than it's been for decades.

Ash to Ashes, Alba to Dust: the Alba Party dramatically ceases to be a parliamentary party seven months earlier than expected, and is reduced to fringe party status

Well, this is it: for four and a half years Alba have enjoyed continuous parliamentary representation, either at Westminster or Holyrood (or for a short while at both), but Ash Regan's resignation brings that era to an end, and it's highly unlikely to ever be revived.  Alba are now in every sense of the word a fringe party - they do admittedly still have two local councillors (including the "Crossmaglen Columbo"), but then the Rubbish Party (look it up, it's a real thing) have one local councillor, so that's kind of the level we're talking about now.

Although the timing of Regan's announcement is a surprise, the logic for her decision has been overwhelming for months, because she remained openly in alliance with Chris "Mad Dog" McEleny after he was sacked as General Secretary for gross misconduct and then expelled from the party.  That situation just wasn't sustainable.  I don't know if she was holding on in the hope that something might turn up which would allow her to topple Kenny MacAskill and the real leader Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (aka "Tyrannical Tas"), thus enabling her to reinstate McEleny, but if so she must have finally accepted that was never going to happen.  The interesting thing now is what McEleny himself does, because Regan will undoubtedly be coordinating her actions with him.  Does he belatedly move on and relinquish his role as Alba's Nominating Officer, allowing the party to pointlessly get on with the task of nominating candidates that will be heavily defeated at next year's election?  Or, on the contrary, is Regan's departure at this stage specifically designed to clear the way for him to go nuclear and block Alba from standing candidates at all?

No wonder Tesco are still rationing popcorn.

So where did it all go so horrifically wrong for Alba?  In truth they sealed their own fate a long time ago by not only choosing the wrong path, but the polar opposite of the right path.  A party like Alba could only have thrived by throwing out the welcome mat and becoming a warm home for all of the most radical parts of the independence movement - instead the party became a narrow, paranoid, authoritarian sect run for the exclusive convenience of an extremely small self-appointed elite of closely linked families and friends, ie. the Corri Nostra, Tas & the Great Zulfikar Sheikh, Robert Reid and his mum, "Those of Salmond Blood", etc.  

The problem with narrow sects is that they tend to only be popular with the people actually running the show, and there just aren't very many of them.

 

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With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Just THREE days to save independence: the John Swinney strategy motion MUST be amended, or the dream could be over

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With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Vote James Kelly #1 for the SNP National Executive Committee: why I'm standing and what I believe in

As you may already have seen on a certain other blog, I've put my name forward for the forthcoming SNP internal elections, which will take place over the weekend.  I'm standing for election to three committees: the National Executive Committee (NEC), the Policy Development Committee, and the Conferences Committee.  I've made a video to explain my reasons for standing, which are mainly to give people who broadly share my views on the way forward on independence strategy, and on the need to reverse the hollowing out of internal party democracy (a problem that exists across all major political parties) someone to vote for.  The first half of the video explains my thoughts on independence strategy, and the second half gives you an overview of my broader political outlook and views on other policy areas.  Some of that might seem like motherhood and apple pie stuff, but in this day and age I'm not sure anything can be taken as read.

Incidentally, if you spot any errors in my explanation of how the voting process works, please let me know so I can correct it.  I've done my best to get it right, but I can't be 100% sure on every single detail.

The Alba Party's days could be numbered as the disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny chooses his moment to unleash "the full wrath of a Mad Dog"

Back in the spring, I exclusively broke the news on Scot Goes Pop (based on what I'd been told by a reliable source) that the Alba Party's disgraced former General Secretary Chris McEleny was refusing to step down as the party's Nominating Officer, and that under Electoral Commission rules, the Alba leadership had no power to remove him against his will.  This left Alba in the extraordinary position that a man they had just expelled was in total control of the list of candidates they put forward for elections, and indeed had the power to block any Alba candidates from being put forward at all.  McEleny's controversial Somerset-based blogger mate "Stew" swiftly ridiculed what I'd revealed, implying it was no more than a figment of my crazed imagination, but even at that stage a lot of the story was easily verifiable from information in the public domain on the Electoral Commission website, and now the rest of the story has been fully confirmed by the Sunday National, who several months later are the first mainstream media outlet to pick up on this latest crisis for Alba.  They have a quote from McEleny in which he openly admits that he has remained the party's Nominating Officer since his expulsion.  It appears that the Alba leadership are betting the house on legal action proving enough to dislodge McEleny without having to do any sort of deal with him - but based on my reading of the rules, that seems to be an extreme long shot.

A commenter on the previous thread asked for my reaction to the Sunday National piece, and you can hear it in the video below.  A key question, of course, is what McEleny's motivations and intentions are - if he's just making a symbolic gesture and trying to make the Alba leadership sweat a bit, the consequences may not be all that severe.  But if he's genuinely planning to use his full powers as Nominating Officer to block candidates from standing, it may be checkmate for Alba and they may be forced to start afresh by registering a new party with a new name.

Those of you who have been suffering withdrawal symptoms from my extensive Shannon Donoghue coverage earlier in the year will be delighted to hear that she does get a passing mention in the video.  But please take this opportunity to update your Donoghue-related fan merchandise, because the Wedding of the Century has now TAKEN PLACE and she's therefore now called Shannon Cullen.

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With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

"Brexit 2 - This Time It's The Kitchen Sink" is coming - and we mustn't squander this second opportunity to use the shock to win independence

Given how consistently the Tories have been trailing in a poor third place in the vast majority of GB-wide polls, it's easy to dismiss anything they say or do these days as a total irrelevance.  But in my view, Kemi Badenoch's announcement that a Tory government would withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights really does matter, because it actually does make it significantly more likely that "Brexit 2" will happen.  That's for two reasons - 

1) There are up to four years left to go until the general election, which leaves plenty of time for Reform to implode, just as every Farage project in the past has ultimately imploded.  If that happens, the Tories are much more likely to pick up the pieces than Labour.

2) If Reform don't implode, they may yet need the Tories as a junior coalition partner if they are to form a government.  Badenoch's decision removes any chance that Reform would have to give up on ECHR withdrawal to seal the coalition deal.

So there's now probably a 75-80% chance that within five years, Britain will be in the dubious company of Russia and Belarus as the only European countries outside the ECHR and outside the Council of Europe.  That will be a shock to the system of liberal unionists in Scotland, and if we strike while that shock is at its most raw, there'll be an opportunity to bring a significant minority of those people over to the Yes side and win a decisive majority for independence.  

But as we learned from squandering the opportunity that Brexit 1 offered to win independence, the window of opportunity will be limited, because over time liberal unionists get used to new realities and reconcile themselves to them.  So we'll need to be ready and this time there can be no procrastination.

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With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Objectively, by far the most effective way of making Scotland's and the UK's Jewish population safer would be to pressurise Israel to end the genocide

Below is my video response to the despicable comments that have been made by Netanyahu sympathisers in the mainstream media, and on social media, suggesting that anyone who marches for Palestinian rights, or who supports Palestinian statehood, or who calls the genocide what it is, is somehow responsible for the atrocity in Manchester.

With less than three months of the year to go, the 2025 Scot Goes Pop fundraiser is still short of its target figure.  If you'd like to help keep the lights on during the several months it will take me to find out whether an alternative funding model is viable (realistically it could be a wait of around four months or more), card donations are welcome HERE.  Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.

Could the *real* support for Scottish independence be 60% or higher? The SHOCKING clue hidden in the Norstat poll's data tables - plus fresh evidence that the beleaguered Alba Party are hurtling towards TOTAL WIPEOUT next May

The data tables for the new Norstat independence poll were released yesterday - and as expected they confirm that the poll was weighted by recalled 2014 referendum result, a practice that other polling firms like Ipsos have warned could be a serious mistake due to the danger of false recall after such a long period of time.  In the video commentary below I reveal exactly what the independence results were on Norstat's unweighted numbers - and I pose the question of whether this means Yes have had a sustained lead on the ground for many years, but that fact has been effectively concealed from us by dubious polling methodology.  I also take stock of another poor poll result for Alba, which firmly suggests Alex Salmond's former party is heading for zero seats next May.

The Scot Goes Pop fundraiser for 2025, launched eight long months ago in January, has been inching closer to its target figure...but can it get there?  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  If you'd like to help Scot Goes Pop stay afloat during this prolonged transitional period while I seek to find out whether video blogging is viable as an alternative funding model, card donations are welcome HERE.    Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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A pro-independence majority for the FOURTH Norstat poll in a row - meaning that the SETTLED WILL KLAXON is sounding ever more insistently

I've gone old-school and reverted to audio-only for my commentary on the new Norstat poll, which shows a substantial pro-independence majority (Yes 53%, No 47%) and a commanding SNP lead in Scottish Parliament voting intentions.  I consider the significance of there now seemingly being three polling companies, rather than the previous two, which are consistently showing Yes ahead, and in particular the significance of the fact that this is happening even though Norstat haven't yet abandoned the questionable practice of weighting by 2014 recalled vote (as far as I know).  I also question what the Sunday Times, who commissioned the poll, are playing at with the downright odd way they've presented the results - most notably their burying of the self-evidently newsworthy independence result.

You can listen by following the direct YouTube link, or via the embedded player below.

The Scot Goes Pop fundraiser for 2025, launched eight long months ago in January, has been inching closer to its target figure...but can it get there?  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  If you'd like to help Scot Goes Pop stay afloat during this prolonged transitional period while I seek to find out whether video blogging is viable as an alternative funding model, card donations are welcome HERE.    Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Another way of helping is by subscribing to my YouTube channel (which I must stress is completely free!).  I need to reach at least 1000 subscribers and I'm currently on 612.

53% back independence in BOMBSHELL poll: panic grips Westminster as Norstat knock up another natty number

Incredibly, after a summer of practically no Scottish polls, we've now had four in the last week, and three have had voting intentions numbers.  The latest is from the regular Norstat series for the Sunday Times.

Should Scotland be an independent country?

Yes 53% (-1)

No 47% (+1)

This run of Yes-majority polls from Norstat is now far too sustained to be coincidental, and it's really strange in a way, because Norstat's predecessor Panelbase was for many years one of the more No-friendly companies, and to the best of my knowledge they haven't changed their methodology - they haven't abandoned 2014 weighting or anything like that (even though in my opinion they probably should).  The most logical explanation is therefore that Yes support has indeed risen markedly - and yet most other polling firms haven't really picked up that trend.

One of the problems with this switching-to-video-blogging malarkey is that there are some times of day when it's not really feasible to drop everything and make a video, which means I'm not reacting quite as quickly to new polls as I was with conventional blogging.  I'll need to have a think about how to square that circle in the future, but with a bit of luck I'll have a video about the Norstat poll within the next 12-24 hours.  In the meantime, here are a few of my tweets from yesterday.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - there is NOTHING that triggers the Brit Nat hordes quite like a tweet about curling.

I must admit I don't recall *quite* this level of BBC coverage when Scotland won the World Curling Championships five months ago.

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 27, 2025

I went to the Freemasons' Grand Lodge in Edinburgh for Doors Open Day. I expected to see blindfolded men kissing toads, but instead there was a woman on the organ playing Pet Shop Boys hits, Underneath the Arches and Ghostbusters. Is there no end to these people's perversions?

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 27, 2025

And as you can see from the memorabilia, they're not beyond supporting separatism *on occasion*... pic.twitter.com/gnyaAB1z9x

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 27, 2025

Here I am sitting in the Grand Master's chair. A rare old treat for a baptised Papist. pic.twitter.com/VolH9ujljU

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 27, 2025

YouGov seats projection is good for the SNP - but it's also a wake-up call that powerfully demonstrates why John Swinney's independence strategy needs to be amended

The new YouGov MRP seats projection in Scotland is rather neat, in the sense that it exactly reverses the result of the 2024 general election, giving the SNP 37 seats and Labour 9.  However, that does still mean that the SNP would fail to win around one-third of Scottish constituency seats at Westminster, which will hopefully be a timely wake-up call as SNP members approach a conference in which they will have to decide whether to back a John Swinney plan which bets the house on literally being able to win 90% of the Holyrood constituency seats.  It's just not going to happen, and the Swinney plan desperately needs to be amended.  Find out all the details of the MRP poll in my video commentary below.

The Scot Goes Pop fundraiser for 2025, launched eight long months ago in January, has been inching closer to its target figure...but can it get there?  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  If you'd like to help Scot Goes Pop stay afloat during this prolonged transitional period while I seek to find out whether video blogging is viable as an alternative funding model, card donations are welcome HERE.    Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Another way of helping is by subscribing to my YouTube channel (which I must stress is completely free!).  I need to reach at least 1000 subscribers and I'm currently on 600.

SNP roar to sensational 17-point lead as "Scotland in Union" propaganda poll hilariously BACKFIRES

Let joy be unbounded, because Scotland in Union's legendary propaganda poll is BACK - but it hasn't exactly produced the results they were banking on.  Find out all the details in the video below.

The Scot Goes Pop fundraiser for 2025, launched eight long months ago in January, has been inching closer to its target figure...but can it get there?  Many thanks to everyone who has donated so far.  If you'd like to help Scot Goes Pop stay afloat during this prolonged transitional period while I seek to find out whether video blogging is viable as an alternative funding model, card donations are welcome HERE.    Or, if you prefer, direct donations can be made via PayPal.  My PayPal email address is:  jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Another way of helping is by subscribing to my YouTube channel (which I must stress is completely free!).  I need to reach at least 1000 subscribers and I'm currently on 582.