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With less than two months of the year left 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.
The SNP/BinS alliance is certainly the best device available to us presently. Modest progress was also made at SNP conference in strengthening independence support on key party committees. I seem to remember that when a similar advance was made some years ago it crumbled quickly when the Sturgeon personality cult counter attacked.
ReplyDeleteHopefully lessons were learned that careerists and psychophants will defend their troughs and petty gods against what they consider to be 'non us'.
As the slow motion collapse of the UK continues we can't afford to be driven back again or we will be dragged down with the desperate and deluded supporters of the pound shop Mussolini, Farage.
I think you need to contemplate more closely the nitty gritty of how the 'Sturgeon personality cult' trope was deliberately manufactured and whom it best served!
DeleteHow did a non story, run by The Telegraph last week develop into an avalanche which took out the BBC Director General and the CEO of News?
ReplyDeleteThe histrionic claims from The Telegraph spoke of a “whistleblower”, and an “internal audit”. In reality the document was the (biased) musings of one disgruntled, former employee.
Preposterously, and crucially, the document claims BBC bias against Israel. Repeat, AGAINST Israel. This is the stuff of Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, and Franz Kafka, force fed on steroids.
While the BBC has run some investigative pieces which exposed an interesting light on the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, the overwhelming number of articles have been pro Israeli.
Israeli “hostages”, and Palestinian “prisoners”. Lurid, and unsubtantiable tales of mistreatment of one Israeli prisoners of war, while ignoring documented evidence of torture of hundreds of Palestinian hostages, up to, and including amputation of limbs, and bullets to the back of the head at point blank range.
If any audit is conducted, cherry picking individual news items is an invalid method of assessment. This is an academic discipline, and such work has been conducted in the past (University of Strathclyde, Media Department). Reporting has to be reviewed over a period of months on a quantitative basis. Any such exercise would prove a systematic PRO Israeli bias.
Good comment anon at 10.54pm. It’s clear that Farage wants rid of the BBC in order to replace it with an even more right wing pro Israel broadcaster. That is the way it is going if we do not get independence soon. All these years wasted with various complacent commentator's ( eg Skier) just saying it will happen in the future as if by right.
DeleteIfsy and his wee pal's noses will be completely out of joint now.
ReplyDeleteJust waiting for their usual dumb diatribes in response.
Incoming.....
“ I simply ignore their negative stuff” says this troll on 9/11/25 at 11.21pm yet here he is at 12.21 pm today saying he is just waiting for my post. I note once again he has nothing to contribute on the Believe in Scotland plan. Not interested in independence are you troll. You seem more interested in the shape of my nose. Sums up your intellect and contribution.
DeleteJames, thanks for your considered views on the Believe in Scotland plan for independence. Unlike the ultra SNP trolls who frequent your blog you can be relied upon to give your own take on matters. These intellectually challenged trolls are obviously having to wait to hear what the official SNP ( Swinney ) view is before they can express an opinion. That opinion being Swinney’s opinion. SNP drones seems to be an apt description.
ReplyDeleteI find it incredible that I have been trolled as a unionist since 2020 for advocating a de facto referendum yet here we are back to a plan that advocates a de facto referendum years in the future. The plan itself holds out little hope of the UK gov ever agreeing a sec 30 referendum. Again something I have said since 2020 and been pilloried as a unionist. Of course the de facto referendum that the plan advocates is at a UK GE and the plan ASSUMES it will happen in 2029. That is not a given as the UK elections of 2017 and 2019 show you cannae guarantee a date for a UK election. So this is a flaw in the plan. It is not within the control of Scotland. Westminster determines when it will happen.
I advocated a de facto referendum at the 2021 Holyrood election when the SNP and independence were riding high. This was a massive opportunity to get a majority vote for independence and it was totally wasted by the SNP. We now have this plan which advocates a UK de facto which is much less favourable to an independence vote than a Holyrood vote. It is possible that it could happen at any time up to 2019 and the SNP and Believe in Scotland could be caught out and be unprepared.
Another factor is who knows where the SNP and Believe in Scotland relationship will be in 2019 or at any time between now and then. The SNP could just ditch Believe in Scotland. Has Swinney endorsed this plan? You also have to ask yourself if you think this plan is fine then why could nobody in the SNP come up with it. After all, the SNP are always saying they own independence but it now seems they have sub contracted it out to Believe in Scotland.
As you say in your video Sturgeon punted a de facto for the 2014 UK GE yet it never happened so why should I trust the same group of people in the SNP to go for it at the next UK GE. Swinney has been there all the time in the last 11 years of non delivery re independence. This is the man who in his own words on TV said he advised Sturgeon NOT to hold an independence referendum. People in the SNP know that and in any organisation the people who want to personally progress their careers always fall in line with the leaders viewpoint. I do not trust the SNP and a cynic would also say the plan nicely takes Swinney up to retirement age.
After the previous debacle over fund raising for a referendum I obviously missed the bit where any monies by this Believe in Scotland appeal for funds raised will be “ring fenced”. I will not be contributing any money.
The plan also builds in a number of very hopeful events occurring but does not make it clear if they are on the critical path to independence.
I suppose some sort of a plan is better than nothing at all even if it is a flawed plan and is more of the jam tomorrow, but give us money now, type of plan.
Ifs thinks he has intellect!! Will someone let him know he hasn’t.
DeleteThe Sturgeon elements have to be expunged. Otherwise a new party will be needed. The agenda brigade are still intent on using the party for their own purposes. Unbelievably Sturgeon still won’t hold her hands up and acknowledge the mess she allowed the gender brigade to get the party into. Hopefully in 2026 she can be finally distanced from the movement. London can have her. I’ll chip in for the train fair. Independence based on emphasising the financial, social and political benefits of an independent Scotland. Toilet conference that way. Independence this way.
ReplyDeleteTo the extent that there is merit in the Believe in Scotland plan, it lies in the eventual destination of a de facto referendum.
ReplyDeleteThe weakness lies in an extrapolation from presumed future events.
* David Cameron’s, English Votes for English Laws moved the dial a bit in our favour, and boosted SNP revenue in the form of Short money (what else that achieved eludes me).
* The Smith Commission, and the betrayal of The Vow ©️, moved public opinion very little, if at all.
* Much to the surprise of all of us, the Brexit vote had hee-haw impact on support for independence (despite the margin of victory for Remain in Scotland, and the fact that every local authority defined constituency voted Remain).
* Boris Johnson, and the hardest of hard Brexit settlement couldn’t even alter hearts, and minds to a measurable degree.
The outcome of elections in Wales, and the occupied counties of Ireland will have no discernible impact on whether a referendum is given Westminster approval.
The line from the BiS manifesto which has garnered the greatest (justified) derision is:
“There is zero chance that the UK government would be able to … deliver against the hopes and dreams of the Scottish People.”
To give BiS the benefit of the doubt, they could be using this as a rhetorical flourish. Another deployment of the old argument; “Look we’ve done everything we reasonably could, and Westminster still won’t acknowledge the right of Scottish self determination.”.
To be clear, the UK is a Spookocracy. The state which is capable of perpetuating the Salisbury / Skripal / Novichok garbage on its citizens (and a mass media which happily propagates such purple pish) ain’t gonna grant a Section 30 order this side of general entropy dissolving the last hydrogen atom into its constituent parts.
Two articles in the National:
ReplyDelete"This is why an independent Scotland must have its own currency"
and
"Forget a new currency. Here's why an independent Scotland must use pound sterling"
which seems balanced but it shows the polar mentality of either / or. For years I was advocating btl in the National to use both for a few years, parallel currencies, while switching over in a controlled fashion when people wanted to, and as central bank reserves built up. Salmond went for that idea, but then it disappeared again.
But it has been what happened when countries changed currencies, albeit for a few days or months. Just do it for years and you get stability. To some extent Denmark does that even now as its own currency is so strong. To steal a phrase "The best of both worlds".
Good to see BiS and SNP, as the two most powerful organisations for Scottish Independence, getting together.
ReplyDeleteThey will have some areas of disagreement for sure and their plans may be less than perfect, but the partnership shows some real promise.
The usual whining voices around the periphery of our movement who have their own destructive agendas fuelled by an irrational hatred of all things SNP, can be safely ignored as the insignificants they really are.
We need some more momentum to galvanise yessers behind the SNP's already dominant position for the 2026 election and this could well help.
One thing is for certain, Wings Alba and their fellow inbreds have nothing left to offer our cause.
Thankfully, most folk can now clearly see that fact.