A wake-up call: with a referendum or plebiscite election just around the corner, we URGENTLY need to rebuild a vibrant pro-independence New Media

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that it was almost exactly ten years ago - I say "almost" because it was November - that I was in Edinburgh doing an unusually glamorous day of work (I'll save that story for my memoirs) and I received an email out of the blue from Stuart Campbell.  He was messaging various bloggers asking if we would be interested in participating in a collaborative pro-independence website with which we could take on the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media at the independence referendum, which by then was less than two years away.  I agreed in principle to take part, but not long afterwards Stuart decided on a completely different path - he continued solo, and crowdfunded so he could effectively 'hire himself' as a full-time journalist working on his own website.  Several of us later followed his example by individually crowdfunding to blog more or less full-time in the run-up to referendum day.  From my own point of view that was a much better outcome, because I strongly value my own editorial freedom - and I think it was also a good model for the Yes movement, because the readership numbers for Scot Goes Pop were astronomical in 2014, and I presume that was being replicated across many of the leading blogs.

As we bloggers are supposed to be egotists, I should really make more of the fact that I was probably the most-read pro-indy blogger during the 2014 indyref campaign.  That happened pretty much by accident. I had been a columnist on the International Business Times for two or three years by then, and I suddenly found that around 30% of my columns were being syndicated on Yahoo, where they were reaching enormous audiences - presumably even bigger than Wings Over Scotland.  To their tremendous credit, the editorial team at the International Business Times were keen to be part of the antidote to media bias during the campaign, rather than part of the problem, and it really did make a difference in balancing up the content featured on the Yahoo homepage.

Can we be confident that the pro-indy New Media is in a position to make as helpful a contribution in a campaign now?  That question really matters, because unless Nicola Sturgeon totally backtracks on what she's promised (and admittedly she did exactly that in 2017), we are now either only fifteen months away from a second independence referendum, or only around two years away from a general election which will be used as a de facto referendum.  And I was a bit shocked - although I shouldn't have been - by how overwhelmingly hostile the mainstream media was in the immediate aftermath of Ms Sturgeon's announcement.

Balance in places like the Yahoo homepage and Google News is of course outwith our control - we'll be relying on individual initiatives from enlightened editors, and on the prominence given to articles from our only pro-independence newspaper.  (I think I have seen articles from The National featured on Yahoo, but not for a few months.)  But the genuinely independent pro-indy New Media is something we do have to claim responsibility for, and that's where I have major concerns about whether enough is being done.  The obvious difference from 2014 is that we now have a big black hole where Wings' positive contribution used to be.  It may be that if the Supreme Court surprise us all by giving its blessing to a referendum, Stuart will return to full-time blogging of the type he produced eight years ago.  But in the more likely scenario that we move on to a plebiscite election, I have grave fears that Stuart will misuse his influence by concentrating on trying to unseat individual SNP MPs who disagree with him on the trans issue.  I was absolutely astonished that having got exactly what he wanted last year with the creation of the Alba party, he then spent the entire Holyrood election campaign blogging about the trans debate, rather than trying to create a buzz about independence and urging people to grab hold of the opportunity Alba were offering.  Even on polling day itself, his post was devoted to effectively telling his readers to vote for unionist parties in a large number of constituencies where he disapproved of the SNP candidate.  That was in direct contravention of the Alba strategy, which was to advocate an SNP constituency vote everywhere in Scotland.  If Stuart does the same thing at a plebiscite election, Wings will have to all intents and purposes morphed into a unionist website.

So I'd suggest we urgently need some blue-sky thinking about what can fill the gap left by Wings - and we should probably think even bigger than last time, because after all we didn't actually win the 2014 referendum.  My own feeling is that crowdfunded TV or radio channels are a dead end, because they suck up vast resources but end up attracting tiny audiences, if they even get off the ground at all.  It's similarly hard to gain much traction with start-up print publications.  So it's mostly websites we need to be thinking about, and as good as something like CommonSpace was under Ben Wray's editorship, that had too narrow an appeal.  What would be ideal would be a glossy, professional-looking website, with no paywall, packed with new content on a daily basis, and that is capable of bringing in a mass audience, including women, young people and the working-class.  I'd suggest to do that at least 50% of the content would have to be about entertainment, sport, lifestyle, etc, etc, acting as a gateway drug for the remaining content about politics and independence, which of course would be strategically placed to catch people's eye.  

The obvious barrier to achieving this would be a) money, and b) finding writers and other creatives willing and able to produce large amounts of quality non-political content.  But that's the sort of thing we need to start thinking about pretty soon.  And if anyone has some alternative ideas, feel free to leave a comment below.

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.

The SNP leadership need to understand that independence may not be achievable without so-called "gesture politics"

As plenty of people have already pointed out, the stand taken by Alba MPs at Prime Minister's Questions this week has provoked a knee-jerk reaction from certain leading SNP figures that is hypocritical to the point of being almost comical.  What happened on Wednesday was, in fact, strikingly similar to the incident four years ago when Ian Blackford led the SNP group in a staged walkout from the Commons.  Not identical, admittedly, but both were premeditated disruption tactics, and they both produced similar reactions from the Speaker of the day - John Bercow reacted to Blackford's stunt with a dismissive "oh fine, away you go" gesture, although the impish smile on his face suggested he was keeping a slightly better sense of perspective than Lindsay "Mr Angry" Hoyle will ever be capable of.  

But it seems the key difference is that Nicola Sturgeon sanctioned the Blackford walkout.  If the First Minister does not sanction a stunt, it's infantile gesture politics, but if she does sanction it, it instantly becomes a mature and principled stand.  The "Nicola-washing" effect is truly miraculous.  (See also Pete Wishart and Mhairi Hunter repeatedly insisting a plebiscite election would be an act of reckless and irresponsible folly until Nicola Sturgeon announced she supported a plebiscite election, at which point they suddenly decided it was a strategic masterstroke.)

Leaving aside the blatant hypocrisy, though, what concerns me is that the SNP may be boxing themselves into a corner where they insist that "gesture politics" is something that Alba do and that the SNP don't do.  The reality is that if the plebiscite election tactic is going to work, it'll probably have to be backed up with something which could characterised as gesture politics.  Suppose the SNP and other Yes parties win more than 50% of the vote at a plebiscite election, but the UK government refuse to acknowledge or accept the mandate for Scotland to become an independent country.  They refuse even to negotiate on a possible compromise (most obviously a referendum to confirm or overturn the mandate).  What do the SNP do then? As far as participation at Westminster is concerned, there are three basic options -

1) The SNP could take a leaf out of Sinn Féin's book by withdrawing from the House of Commons and following an abstentionist policy until such time as the UK Government agree to negotiate.  Although the unionist media would undoubtedly try to dismiss this as a petulant act of irresponsibility, the chances are that it would actually be highly effective, because it would create an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy for London rule in Scotland.  The UK is not yet the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, and it would be seen as a major problem if Scotland was essentially going unrepresented in the UK Parliament for a prolonged period.  Now, let's be under no illusions - London might well try to find a 'unionist solution' to such a crisis, perhaps by contriving a way of legally unseating the SNP's MPs, but the point is that it would have to be resolved somehow.  The situation wouldn't be regarded as sustainable in the long term.

2) The SNP could take their cue from Alba by staying at Westminster but engaging in a campaign of sustained parliamentary disruption until the UK Government agree to negotiate.  There's quite a lot of havoc that a party with 50 or so MPs would be capable of wreaking.  One obvious vulnerability of the Westminster system is the antiquated voting procedure, which takes up so much time that it effectively relies upon the goodwill of MPs in allowing non-contentious matters through on the nod.  The SNP could clog up the schedule by forcing even the most trivial issues to a formal vote.  Or SNP MPs could cause endless delays by raising repeated points of order.  Again, this situation would not be regarded as sustainable - either there would have to be rule changes to thwart the SNP's tactics (and this would probably be resisted by Tory MPs who regard themselves as custodians of parliament's ancient rights and privileges), or there would have to be a negotiated settlement with the SNP to end the disruption.

3) The SNP could carry on with business as usual in the Commons, in which case they would be tacitly accepting that their mandate for independence is worthless and something that will become nothing more than a historical curiosity, very much like the 1979 mandate for devolution which was completely ignored and disregarded for the next two decades.

Now, I am categorically NOT raising this point to give people an excuse to say "a plebiscite election is a waste of time, it's just another way of kicking the can down the road".  A plebiscite election is, in fact, our best opportunity of winning independence (assuming the Supreme Court strikes down a referendum), and it's absolutely vital that we pull out all the stops to secure a clear mandate.  But we do also need to think about what would happen afterwards.  Rank-and-file SNP members need to think about how they would pressure their parliamentarians to back up any mandate with credible action.  We in Alba need to think about how we would apply external pressure with the same aim in mind.  And individual SNP parliamentarians need to think about what they could do to press home the mandate in parliament if the party fails to act collectively.

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.

Lindsay Hoyle's Angry Man Syndrome reveals a broken UK "democracy" that simply cannot bear to have a mirror held up to it

Today's incident in the House of Commons, which saw a ranting, purple-faced Lindsay Hoyle demean his high office by screaming for the Alba Party's two MPs to be physically ejected from the chamber, has a number of past precedents.  What it reminds me of most is an episode just after the 1992 general election, in which 74% of the Scottish population voted for parties promising to establish a Scottish Parliament, but were then told they couldn't have the self-government they had voted for, because English voters had decided otherwise by electing a majority Tory government opposed to devolution.  The Scottish Labour leadership naturally just accepted this outrageous situation and told us we would have to knuckle down and wait for (at least) another five long years.  But a couple of Labour MPs, namely John McAllion and George Galloway, broke ranks and decided to engage in parliamentary disruption tactics to try to bring matters to a head a lot sooner than 1997.  The newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd, handled the situation deftly when Mr McAllion made his first intervention - in a highly sympathetic tone of voice, she stressed that the matter he was raising was extremely important and urged him to pursue it by other means.

Now, that's the reaction of a confident democrat who is comfortable in her own skin.  Someone who has faith that the system she was elected to represent is capable - just about - of accommodating legitimate dissent and finding civilised resolutions that can command popular acceptance.  Lindsay Hoyle, by contrast, clearly has no such faith or confidence.  His anger is the same anger that tried to shut down the just cause of the suffragettes or of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement, who had turned to civil disobedience when all other democratic avenues had been exhausted.  Because, after all, when Scottish MPs try to advance their nation's cause by means of parliamentary disruption, there is literally nothing Hoyle can suggest they do instead.  He can't tell them to argue their case in a referendum, because he represents a system that has forbidden referendums.  He can't tell them to argue their case in an election, because he represents a system that has decreed any majority vote for independence in an election will simply be disregarded ("elections are not for that", we are told).  Scottish self-government is against the rules, and voting for Scottish self-government is against the rules.  All that is left for Hoyle is to be the enthusiastic enforcer as the increasingly despotic system he represents tries to stamp the democratic voice of Scotland out of existence completely.  We have to be silenced to prevent Westminster being constantly reminded of what it's become - that's the root of Hoyle's anger.  His message to our country's elected representatives is simple and it is stark: "Either shut up or GET OUT of this chamber - if necessary, by force".  

The 1992 comparison is interesting for another reason too.  The two Alba MPs are the modern equivalent of John McAllion - dissenters who actually want to take some action, rather than legitimise the Westminster veto of Scottish democracy by carrying on with business as usual.  Which of course leaves the SNP as the modern equivalent of the do nothing Scottish Labour mainstream back in 1992.  That probably explains why there's been a flood of new members joining Alba since Hoyle's meltdown this afternoon.  If you'd like to see Alba continue to hold up a mirror to the British political establishment, if only to make Hoyle aware of just how purple his face is getting, here's the link to join the party.

Quite honestly, I can no longer see any real argument against the most committed independence supporters joining Alba.  Until a couple of weeks ago, there was maybe a case to be made for staying in the SNP just in case there was a leadership election in which someone like Joanna Cherry needed votes. But now that we seem to be heading for either a referendum or plebiscite election with Nicola Sturgeon still as SNP leader, the important thing is to keep the SNP leadership honest and to keep harrying and shaming Westminster wherever possible.  As we've seen today, the best way of doing that is as part of Alba.

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The odd thing about the Tory leadership contest is that it seemed complicated and impenetrable a few days ago, but now all of a sudden it seems extremely simple.  I think Penny Mordaunt is the next Prime Minister.  There is convincing polling evidence (including a new and properly-conducted poll of Tory members from YouGov) that she is likely to beat Rishi Sunak in a run-off - and judging from today's first ballot of MPs, that is where we seem to be heading.  The only way in which Mordaunt might still be stopped is with some very sophisticated tactical voting from Sunak-supporting MPs to try to stop her reaching the final two.

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.

Suddenly it looks much less likely that Rishi Sunak is the next Prime Minister

I'm completely stunned by the outcome of the latest ConHome survey on Tory members' leadership preferences - which has to be taken seriously, because Tory members will ultimately select the new leader from a shortlist of two handed to them by MPs.  It doesn't matter how decisively Rishi Sunak tops the MPs' ballots - if the second placed candidate is more popular with the members, Sunak will quite simply not become Prime Minister, and it now looks like that scenario may very well play out.

From the start I've been baffled by Penny Mordaunt's status as either favourite or one of the favourites, but the survey suggests her chances have not been remotely over-hyped.  Even more remarkably, in a close second place is the obscure Kemi Badenoch, while Sunak trails in a fairly distant third.

ConservativeHome leadership survey of Conservative members:

Penny Mordaunt 20%

Kemi Badenoch 19%

Rishi Sunak 12%

Suella Braverman 11%

Liz Truss 11%

Tom Tugendhat 7%

Jeremy Hunt 4%

Nadhim Sahawi 4%

Sajid Javid 3%

Grant Shapps 2%

Priti Patel 2%

I'm half-tempted to blame myself for being surprised, because I haven't exactly been keeping a close eye on the ongoing Tory beauty contest in recent years.  As I said on Twitter the other day, I even had to look up Mordaunt on YouTube to remind myself of what her voice sounds like.  But the reality is that none of this makes much sense, no matter how closely you've been paying attention.  Neither Mordaunt not Badenoch are Cabinet ministers - Mordaunt is a Minister of State, which is the rung below Cabinet level, and Badenoch has just become a former Minister of State.  It's unprecedented in modern times for anyone to jump straight from being a Minister of State to being Prime Minister - although that may be slightly misleading in the case of Mordaunt, who was a Cabinet member in the past.  (Boris Johnson technically went straight from the backbenches to Number 10, because he had resigned as Foreign Secretary a year earlier, so that's perhaps comparable to Mordaunt's situation.)

ConHome's write-up implies that Sunak can now expect to lose if he faces Mordaunt or Badenoch in the run-off.  I think that's right if it's Mordaunt, because there's nothing that can be expected to shift members' views radically, but if it's Badenoch, I can't help wondering if the members will get cold feet about electing someone who is far less experienced than Sunak (even though she's the same age as him).

The survey is also useful for separating out the credible candidates from the also-rans.  It looks as if Hunt, Javid, Shapps, Patel and Sahawi might as well forget the whole thing, while incredibly the awful Truss and Braverman both have a realistic chance.  Tugendhat is, at best, on the fringes of contention.

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.

"Choose Your Own British Constitution", starring Alister Jack

During the crisis that led to Boris Johnson's resignation, the BBC used startlingly colonial language to note that Alister Jack was the only one of the "territorial" Secretaries of State who hadn't resigned.  It seems that from the point of view of the state broadcaster, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not nations, but mere "territories" on a par with the Yukon Territory or Nunavut.  It also seems that Alister Jack is so comprehensively Boris Johnson's man in Scotland that nothing could ever have persuaded him to distance himself from his master.  It would therefore be logical to think that Johnson's successor might not want someone so closely associated with a discredited former Prime Minister, and that the "Jack era" (chortle) might be drawing to a close.  Which chillingly means that Andrew Bowie could soon be Secretary of State for Scotland.

If so, one of the last hurrahs for Jack will be perhaps the most mind-bogglingly incoherent and contradictory set of ramblings on constitutional matters that it has ever been our misfortune to hear.  According to the Evening Standard, Jack said a few days ago that UK general elections are "not for the purpose" of determining whether Scotland should become an independent country or have a referendum on independence.  Why not?  Because the constitution is a reserved matter.

Er, Alister, I don't know how to break the news to you, mate, but "reserved matter" means a power that is not devolved and is instead retained by Westminster - in other words the parliament that is elected by UK general elections.  If Westminster elections are "not for the purpose" of determining Westminster matters....well, I'm not quite sure I have the vocabulary to finish this sentence, other than to say that Jack has plainly gone crackers.  And in case you think he mis-spoke, he actually developed the point at quite some length, proclaiming that the SNP are not allowed to put policy on Westminster matters in their Westminster manifesto.  This is the exact quote: 

"Nicola Sturgeon can no more put in her manifesto that she’s going to remove Trident from the Clyde which is entirely reserved – which she’s done in the past but she’s never removed Trident from the Clyde – than she can put in her manifesto she’s going to break up the United Kingdom. That isn’t how general elections work."

I'm trying to work out how on earth Jack would explain or rationalise that statement in the unlikely event that a semi-competent journalist ever challenged him on it.  The implication seems to be that Westminster elections are not the correct democratic arena to pursue reserved Westminster matters, which begs the obvious question: what would be the correct democratic arena?  If the SNP aren't allowed to put policy on reserved matters in their manifesto for elections to the House of Commons, should they instead be putting it in their manifesto for Scottish Parliament elections? Or in their manifesto for local council elections?  Or in their manifesto for elections to the House of Lords?  Or in their manifesto for elections to the Supreme Court? Or perhaps the UK isn't a democracy and nobody - especially not a Jock voter - is allowed to vote on reserved matters in any election ever?

Logically, it's got to be one of the above, surely?

By the way, if you expect to find consistency in the constitutional pronouncements of Secretaries of State for Scotland down the ages, you'll search in vain.  Two decades ago, the first post-devolution Secretary of State Dr John Reid said the polar opposite of what Jack has just said.  Reid declared that the SNP couldn't use Scottish Parliament elections to pursue independence or an indyref, because "if you understand the constitution" (those are the words he used), you would know that the way to achieve independence is to put it in your Westminster manifesto and achieve a majority in Scotland at a Westminster general election.  Why?  Because the constitution is a reserved matter.  (Ahem.)

Not only does Reid's version of the constitution contradict Jack's, it also contradicts the current stance of his own Labour party, so if anyone has an extensive video collection of political interviews from the early days of devolution, that might be a rather useful clip to dig out.

When I was at primary school, there were some books lying around from the American "Choose Your Own Adventure" series in which the reader is the protagonist and shapes the story by making active decisions at the end of each entry.  ("If you want to enter the sinister-looking cave, go to page 43.  If you would rather have schnapps, go to page 238.")   The unwritten British constitution seems to provide similar exciting opportunities for Scottish Secretaries.  Reid, of course, held his position in an era when it was unthinkable that the SNP would ever take a majority of Scottish seats in a Westminster election, but when it was thought just about plausible they could win a Scottish Parliament election.  So he thought it was a spiffing wheeze to decide that "the constitution says" that the SNP need to win a Westminster election before Scotland can become independent.  But now that there is plainly no type of election that the SNP are incapable of winning, Reid's successor has been forced to magically conclude that "the constitution says" there is no democratic route to independence at all.

I must say that the malleability, adaptability and flexibility of the British constitution is truly inspiring to behold.  

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.

Which of the criticisms of the SNP's new strategy on independence are fair, and which are unfair?

Not for the first time in my life, I find myself roughly equidistant between Sturgeon loyalists and the First Minister's most trenchant critics in the wake of her big announcement.  That's probably the most realistic and sensible place to be, but it's not always the most comfortable, because there aren't all that many people here with me.   For days, the comments section of this blog has been full of suggestions that nothing has really changed and that the Scottish Government are continuing to act in bad faith by kicking the independence can ever-further down the road.  So I thought it might be an idea to sort through those criticisms and separate out the ones that are well-founded from the ones that seem to be nothing more than unjust knee-jerk reactions.

"Angus Robertson's comment that independence will be 'the key issue' in the SNP campaign for the 2024 election suggests that the notion of a plebiscite election is a confidence trick - SNP supporters will be duped into thinking they're fighting a de facto referendum while the unionist media will hear nothing more than a vague Independence Is Quite A Nice Idea Isn't It."

I must admit I was concerned when I heard the phraseology Angus Robertson was using in media interviews.  However, Nicola Sturgeon is the leader of the SNP, not Angus Robertson, and her own language has been absolutely unmistakeable.  See, for example, her tweet reacting to Boris Johnson's refusal to grant a Section 30 order - 

Just received this from Johnson (one of his last acts as PM?). To be clear, Scotland will have the opportunity to choose independence - I hope in a referendum on 19 October 2023 but, if not, through a general election. Scottish democracy will not be a prisoner of this or any PM. pic.twitter.com/EAgIVvEuoc

— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) July 6, 2022

There's no real space for creative ambiguity in those words - she's suggesting that if a referendum isn't possible, Scotland will be able to choose independence in the general election in exactly the same way that it would have been able to do in a referendum.  So I don't think we need to worry about tricksy language at this stage.  What might be a more reasonable concern is Ms Sturgeon's long track record of repeatedly going back on her word on independence strategy, so it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that she could use crystal-clear language now but not actually follow through on it when the time comes.  However, she surely must realise that the patience of many SNP stalwarts would be pushed beyond breaking-point if she did that, possibly triggering a wave of resignations from the party and perhaps defections to Alba.  So there's a huge incentive for her not to backtrack this time.

"Sturgeon is conning people into thinking there will be a referendum in October 2023!"

To me this is a really odd criticism to still be making, because the whole point of her announcement was to finally drop the pretence that there will definitely be a referendum next year.  The pretence was certainly there before the announcement, and we were absolutely right to call it out for the absurdity that it was, but it's not there anymore.  What we were really criticising her for was not having a credible backstop in the event that a referendum is struck down by the Supreme Court, but she's now introduced a credible backstop in the form of a plebiscite election in 2024.  So until and unless she goes back on her word, I think we should just give credit where credit's due and acknowledge that she's finally done exactly what we've been asking her to do for years.

"Sturgeon has needlessly given the unionists a massive Christmas present by setting the target for victory in a plebiscite election far too high.  She should be saying we only need a majority of seats, not a majority of votes."

I'm not sure that stacks up.  If there's a battle for hearts and minds on the question of whether Scotland can become an independent country on the basis of 35% or 40% of the vote (enough to win a majority of seats under first-past-the-post), or whether 50% should be required, it's obvious that the public will side with the unionists on that point - as indeed will other countries.  The pro-independence camp would be left looking a bit dodgy, as if we were trying to swindle our way to our goal without a proper mandate.  So it's probably best to make a virtue out of necessity by voluntarily acknowledging from the outset that only a majority of votes will do.  Arguably we could fudge the issue for the time being by saying "winning the election" would constitute a mandate without specifying what "winning" means.  But I'm not sure that would be sustainable as the election approaches.

"Sturgeon has undermined the independence cause by failing to appoint a Lord Advocate who is prepared to unequivocally state that a referendum is legal without a Section 30 order."

That is absolutely fair comment.  It would have been perfectly possible to find a potential Lord Advocate with a favourable interpretation of the legal position, and it seems almost negligent that this didn't happen.  There are only really two possibilities: either a) Nicola Sturgeon was trying to sabotage her own chances of delivering her promise of an independence referendum, or b) she had priorities other than independence at the forefront of her mind when she appointed Dorothy Bain, and simply didn't consider the consequences of what she was doing.  I'm fairly sure the answer is b), but that's more than bad enough.  If I was in Ms Sturgeon's shoes, I'd be tempted to rectify the error by hurriedly installing a new Lord Advocate - there would be a hit to be taken as a result of doing that, but in the long run it would probably be worth it.

"The SNP will make a Yes vote harder to achieve by insisting upon a much less broadly-based campaign than in 2014, with Alba and lots of other 'undesirables' left out in the cold completely."

I can't disagree with that, and it's a dreadful indictment of the intolerance of the modern SNP (and indeed of the modern Scottish Green Party).  But that doesn't get the rest of us off the hook.  If the Yes campaign is deeply flawed, we will have to get wholeheartedly behind that deeply flawed campaign and make very, very sure that it wins in spite of itself.  Independence comes before everything else.  As I've said before, I'll quite happily kneel in front of a statue bearing the inscription "FIONA ROBERTSON, MOTHER OF THE NATION", just so long as Scotland is an independent country by then.  Who gives a monkey's where the credit goes after we achieve our objective?

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.

The clincher was Pincher

Please disregard any scurrilous rumours that I may have stolen the title of this blogpost from a rather splendid rhyme used by the chair of the Alba Party last night.

One of the really annoying things about the last couple of days is that every time I have an idea for a blogpost, it's overtaken by events by the time I get round to writing it.  But to hell with it this time, I'm just going to write the post I had in mind before Boris Johnson resigned, even though it's entirely academic now.  There was speculation yesterday that the one way Johnson might have been able to circumvent the fact that he had clearly lost the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the Tory parliamentary party was by dissolving parliament and calling a general election before MPs had a chance to oust him.  You can see the attraction from a selfish point of view - if, as seems highly likely, he had lost the general election, he'd have been no worse off than he otherwise would have been, but if he somehow had gained a renewed mandate from the public, it would then have been impossible for MPs to move against him.  

But would the Queen have granted a dissolution in these extraordinary circumstances?  There's one really interesting precedent which hasn't been mentioned much because it happened outside the UK.  In 2008, there was a constitutional crisis in Canada, which has a Westminster-style system of government, with the Governor-General performing the Queen's functions.  The Conservatives emerged from a federal election as the largest single party, but without a majority.  The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation idiotically kept announcing on their results programme that a "Conservative minority government has been elected" - an entirely meaningless concept, and sure enough the three main opposition parties swiftly concluded a coalition deal to oust the Tories.  But the Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper had a cunning wheeze. He knew that if he could prevent a no confidence vote in his government from taking place for a few weeks, there was a decent chance that the Liberals would change leader and withdraw from the proposed coalition.  So he went to the Governor-General and requested an extended and entirely needless prorogation of parliament.  As in the UK, it was theorised that dissolution and prorogation is one of the few genuine powers that the monarch or Governor-General holds, and that there was a real chance that such a cynical request from the PM would be rejected, especially as there was no parliamentary majority for it.  

But it wasn't. The Governor-General took advice and clearly concluded it was constitutionally unthinkable to resist the Prime Minister's wishes.  Harper's brazen plan came off exactly as intended - parliament was prorogued, a no confidence vote was averted, the Liberals changed leader and withdrew from the coalition, and Tory minority rule trundled on.  So perhaps Boris Johnson would have got away with a dissolution request - although he would have gone down in infamy (or even more infamy) if he'd attempted that tactic.

One interesting thing now is how Boris Johnson will fare in the historical rankings of Prime Ministers - because although his premiership fell apart in even more catastrophic manner than Theresa May's, he did (unlike her) achieve the goal of "getting Brexit done".  He's a bit like Edward Heath - a short-term Prime Minister who nevertheless did something huge and with lasting consequences during that short term. In the case of Johnson those consequences will be heavily negative, but nevertheless Brexit was what he was elected to do, so his place in the rankings will presumably have to take some account of that.

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We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

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The Boris butterfly effect: what are the SNP's options in the unlikely event of a snap general election?

From our point of view, the million dollar question is what difference the wave of resignations from the Tory government will make to the Yes campaign in either a 2023 independence referendum, or a plebiscite election in 2024.  I think it's fair to say that Boris Johnson is probably now toast.  Prime Ministers have sometimes held on in unlikely circumstances - John Major, for example, seemed to be on the way out on numerous occasions, but somehow saw out his full five-year term between 1992 and 1997.  That can be partly explained by a few random twists of fate, most notably the sudden death of John Smith in 1994, which effectively took the heat off Major for a few crucial months by producing a totally unexpected vacancy at the top of the Labour party.  And it may well be that only a big and unforeseen event can save Johnson now - but would even that be enough? After all, even Major didn't see his Chancellor resign in a deliberate attempt to unseat him.  The better comparison is with the resignations of Nigel Lawson in 1989 and Geoffrey Howe in 1990, which did manage to bring down Mrs Thatcher - although admittedly there was no sense of inevitability about the success of that tactic until the final hours.  

If Johnson does go, the pro-independence campaign will arguably lose its biggest asset - but the equation is no longer as simple as it was once was.  The ideal scenario from a strategic point of view was to have Johnson wildly popular (or at least reasonably popular) south of the border but totally loathed north of the border.  We used to have exactly that, but no longer - he's loathed everywhere.  That's potentially a problem for us, because if - hypothetically - Johnson were to remain in harness until the general election, it might start to appear certain that a Labour government is on its way, which would make it harder for us to continue framing the choice as a straight one between independence and Tory rule.  So there may actually be certain advantages in Johnson being replaced, as long as his successor isn't popular in Scotland (which seems unlikely, but you never know).

The other issue is whether a new leader will cut and run by calling a snap election before the Supreme Court has had a chance to consider the legality of a 2023 independence referendum, thus disrupting the SNP's plans.  I still think that's unlikely - the fate of both Gordon Brown and Theresa May will be cautionary tales for any new Prime Minister about what can happen if you even flirt with a needless election.  And, in any case, it would only be a realistic option if there's a big bounce for the Tories after a leadership ballot, which is by no means certain.

If a snap election does occur, the SNP will have a finite number of options, which are as follows:

1) Go ahead and use the snap election as a plebiscite election.  This would go against their instincts because they want a Supreme Court defeat to justify the plebiscite election tactic.

2) Indicate that they will instead engineer an early Holyrood election to ensure a plebiscite election in 2024.  Before the usual suspects turn up with the usual refrain "they can't do that without a supermajority", it would actually be pretty easy - if the Scottish Government resign, there would be no viable alternative government without the participation of the Greens, so an early election would inevitably follow. Again, this would be against Nicola Sturgeon's ultra-cautious instincts, though.

3) Indicate that they will instead use the scheduled 2026 Scottish Parliament election as a plebiscite election.  This would cause huge discontent within the independence movement, which has been led to expect a vote on independence by 2024 at the latest.  It wouldn't be hard to imagine defections from the SNP to Alba in this scenario.

4) Indicate that they will instead use the scheduled 2027 Westminster general election (that would be the scheduled date if there's a snap election soon) as a plebiscite.  This would cause the same problem as option 3), but with bells on.

My guess is this is all academic, though - I still expect the general election to take place in 2024 (probably May 2024).

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.

Persuading the SNP leadership of the need for a Plan B is a triumph for the independence movement - we now need to park our cynicism and make this work

I've been astonished by some of the reactions on social media to the prospect of a plebiscite election in 2024 - and when I say 'astonished', I don't just mean that I disagree with the reactions, I mean that I'm genuinely surprised.  For years we've been begging the SNP leadership to commit themselves to a credible Plan B in the event of an ongoing rejection of a Section 30 order, but I was very, very sceptical that we'd ever be able to persuade them to do that.  If you'd asked me two weeks ago whether I thought Nicola Sturgeon would unambiguously commit herself to using the 2024 Westminster election as a de facto plebiscite if a consultative referendum in 2023 was blocked, I'd have said that was very unlikely.

Having got so much of what we wanted, against all the odds, I'd have thought we would then have all fallen over ourselves to smooth the path towards a plebiscite election (should the Supreme Court ruling go the wrong way).  Instead, there's been endless chatter on Twitter about using a plebiscite election to take on the SNP and to have as many pro-independence parties and candidates standing against each other as humanly possible.  With all due respect to the otherwise sensible people saying this stuff, it's absolutely bats**t crazy.  As the Alba Party leader Alex Salmond has made clear in his statement, the objective has to be for us all to unite behind a single pro-independence candidate in each constituency.  The first-past-the-post voting system will punish us heavily if we don't - a factor which is more important in a plebiscite election, not less so.

I think what's probably going on here is that some people have become so alienated from the SNP that they're finding it emotionally impossible to imagine being required to vote SNP to deliver independence.  So they're casting around for plausible-sounding reasons why it would somehow be helpful to have multiple pro-indy parties directly battling against each other in a plebiscite election - but, of course, it really, really wouldn't be.  One common argument is that seats don't matter this time - all we need is 50% + 1 in the popular vote, and it therefore doesn't matter if we lose seats by splitting the Yes vote.  By having multiple Yes parties to choose from, it is said, we would actually boost the combined vote for Yes parties, because there are supposedly people who would never vote SNP, but would vote Alba or Green.

Well, there are two answers to that.  Firstly, seats do matter.  We can undermine a mandate on the popular vote by needlessly throwing seats away, and we can buttress the mandate by maximising the number of pro-indy seats.  But more importantly, the idea that you increase the pro-indy vote by having multiple candidates to choose from is completely misconceived, because it looks at the problem from the wrong way round.  A single-issue election means exactly what it says - the objective is to convert voters to independence, to get them excited about it, and then to direct them to the option on the ballot paper that will deliver it, whether that be a Yes alliance, or the SNP on their own, or whatever.  If you try to squeeze out an extra 0.5% here or there by saying (for example) "here's an independence option for people who dislike Sturgeon's neoliberalism", it's fool's gold because you're undermining the clarity of the single issue message.

I'm not going to rehearse this point endlessly, though - there's no need to, because I'm actually pretty confident that common sense will prevail and we'll all be getting behind a single slate of candidates in any plebiscite election.  As I've said a few times, the trickiest part of the equation will probably be the two constituencies where Alba have the incumbent MPs.  Common sense would suggest that the SNP should give the incumbents a clear run (as the Liberal Democrats did with the remaining SDP MPs at the 1992 general election), but we know that the SNP have long since abandoned common sense and reason in their attitudes to the Alba Party.  However, even in those two constituencies, I believe the problem will somehow resolve itself, even if it's not yet clear how.  There's a tremendous incentive for the independence movement to clear the path towards victory.

James epitomises the 'hope over experience' ideal in his post. Anyone with an interest in Scottish politics knows that Sturgeon's NuSNP will always put party before country. They will say anything to maximise their number of MPs and, once in, will continue as loyal colonialists.

— John Bell (@Jigger639) July 2, 2022

The above is typical of the more negative reactions to my blogpost yesterday.  "It doesn't matter what the SNP have committed themselves to, we can't trust anything they say, this is just a way of getting Pete Wishart another five years at Westminster to do sod all".  Well, frankly, if we're quite as cynical as that, what was the point of pressuring the SNP to adopt this new strategy?  We might as well have just packed up and gone home several years ago, because although the pressure can come from the grassroots and other parties, it's only the SNP leadership who can actually deliver what we want, and we've known that all along.  If we were ever going to achieve our objective, we were always bound to arrive at this moment where a leap of faith is required.  Yes, the SNP could just pocket a mandate at a plebiscite election and do nothing much with it apart from Mr Wishart getting even more comfy in his slippers.  But if you think about it, exactly the same could be true of a consultative referendum.  The important thing is that we've finally persuaded the SNP to decouple the problem of legally securing a mandate for independence from the problem of legally securing independence itself.  We now have a golden opportunity to secure the mandate, and we need to make damn sure we actually do that.  If we succeed, it's possible we may subsequently need to hold the SNP's feet to the fire as far as using the mandate is concerned - but that's a battle for the future.  First things first.

Astounding #Referendum2023 poll shows a pro-independence majority for the first time in any Panelbase poll since April 2021

Should Scotland be an independent country?  (Panelbase / Sunday Times)

Yes 51% (+2)

No 49% (-2)

For my money unionist politicians are going to be absolutely stunned and horrified by the results of the new Panelbase poll - which appears to be the second poll conducted since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement, but the first with a normal sample size of 1000 respondents or so.  Even as an independence supporter, I'd have put money on a Panelbase poll right now showing a small to middling No lead.  The last five Panelbase polls in a row have shown No ahead, and the most recent poll from the firm to have a Yes lead was just before the Holyrood election in the spring of last year.  An outright Yes lead will not have been what the Tories and Labour were expecting, particularly in view of the onslaught from a media that has dropped all pretence of being anything other than a British nationalist propaganda front.  This may be the first sign of the dividends we can expect as a result of the SNP leading from the front, rather than forever running away from making the case for a referendum or for independence.

Similarly, I'm pretty sure unionists would have been expecting sizeable opposition to Nicola Sturgeon's choice of date for a referendum, whereas in fact there's a practically even split, with 43% in favour of the date and 44% opposed.  The naming of the date may well have changed the dynamic by concentrating voters' minds.

The poll also contains Scottish voting intentions for Westminster, but it uses a non-standard question which asks respondents to specifically say how they would vote if the SNP use the election as a de facto independence referendum.  That may well be a more meaningful measure of how such an election would play out, but it does mean that these results aren't directly comparable with any previous poll.

Scottish voting intentions for a UK general election used as a de facto independence referendum:

SNP 47%

Labour 23%

Conservatives 19%

Liberal Democrats 8%

Other 3%

As with the ComRes poll, it's really frustrating that Panelbase haven't offered the Greens as an option - because if, by any chance, all 3% of the "others" are Green (or Alba) supporters, that would take the combined vote for Yes parties to the magic 50%.  However, what is really encouraging here is that the SNP vote isn't falling off a cliff when the plebiscite aspect is specified.  Quite the reverse, in fact - the SNP vote is five percentage points higher than in the last Panelbase poll using a standard Westminster question.

Among the supplementary questions, respondents were asked to predict which way the Supreme Court will jump.  48% think the judges will strike the October 2023 referendum down, and 33% think they will give it the green light.  I must say I can't for the life of me see what the point of that question is, because voters have no control over what the Supreme Court will do, and for the most part aren't qualified to make legal predictions.  Perhaps of more interest, though, is that the percentage of voters who expect Scotland to be independent within five years has shot up by ten points, and the total percentage who expect independence within ten years has increased by four points.

*  *  *

We've already seen since Nicola Sturgeon's announcement that the overwhelmingly unionist mainstream media are attempting a 'shock and awe' campaign to try to kill off independence - and the misuse of polling is playing a key part in that.  If you'd like to balance things out with polling commissioned by a pro-independence outlet and which asks the questions we want to see asked, one way of doing that would be to help Scot Goes Pop's fundraising drive - see details below.

Direct payments via Paypal - my Paypal email address is:   jkellysta@yahoo.co.uk

Scot Goes Pop General Fundraiser 

Scot Goes Pop Polling Fundraiser 

If you prefer a bank transfer, please message me for details using the contact email address which can be found in the sidebar of the blog (desktop version only), or on my Twitter profile.