Where to Start? Let’s start with Independence

So… oh god – where do you start. Brexit anniversary? Covid enquiry? Boris Johnson? Rumours that Liz Truss is being touted as the come back queen – suggestions the Tories will bring her back as leader? It’s chaos again. Today I read that Rishi Sunak has been using erasable ink and potentially has “rubbed out” notes which might have been important to the Covid enquiry.

Jeezo, these are people supposed to be running a country. These are the people that want Scotland to stay in the UK. That think we are better together because …. Because what?

It’s not because the UK is thriving. The UK is a backward, insular, broke, selfish crock of crap. Driven to this pale, sad, imitation of a modern democracy by those who would line their own pockets with money from the pockets of the poor and sick and walk away laughing.

The Tories are the school bully, strutting around, lying, cheating, stealing and the Labour Party are the sycophants holding on to their coat tails, trying to be “Big” but not wanting everyone to hate them too.

Who even are the Labour Party? No to free school meals, no to strikes, no to pay rises for those who need them, no to rejoining Europe, no to socialism for God’s sake.

And of course – no to Scotland choosing its own path.

That Scotland’s next election will be fought on Independence is now clear.

Humza Yousaf said at weekend that if the SNP win the General Election then that will be a mandate to begin independence negotiations.

Good.

The UK government are torpedoing Scottish legislation and Scottish policies wherever they can. I’m not sure why they think this is a winning strategy.m but clearly, like the school bullies they are they’ve decided to just hit harder.

That’s never a winning strategy. It shames them and pisses everyone off. The GRRA, their ridiculous behaviour over the DRS, the post Brexit power grab which allows them to interfere in devolved matters and their continuing lies are starting to dint even even some committed unionists. Because what is there? What is there to be proud of?

Humza Yousaf is in Europe this week. Talking about what Scotland has to offer, what Scotland wants to be – an outward looking, independent, country at the heart of Europe. Apparently the UK Government are going to stop us from doing that. How? Twist our arm up our back whilst they have their hand over our mouths?

Maybe the Tories think they are “Cock of the school” today (to coin a phrase from my lancashire schooldays) but if all they have is that it’s great to be British, they’ll lose and Scotland will be free. So, 2024, we’ll be voting, get ready folks, if we think it’s bumpy now, we have seen nothing yet.

#YouYesYet

#Indyref2

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The black and shrivelled heart of the Conservative Party is up for grabs

So… Boris is done. He’s resigned and has left Parliament. Done and dusted, gone for good.

Not a chance. Whatever Boris Johnson is doing, going off to lick his wounds, reflect on his role in his own demise and quietly retire to do good works will not be it.

Boris Johnson is a charlatan, a shape shifting illusionist who will do and say whatever he needs to do, in order to get whatever he wants.

A couple of days ago, Johnson was facing censure, he was found to have lied to Parliament, not once but repeatedly. He was facing a lengthy suspension and potential recall – that’s when constituents can sack their MP by over 10% of them signing a petition. It’s happening just now in Rutherglen where Margaret Ferrier has been suspended for 30 days for breaking Covid rules.

That was where Boris Johnson was two days ago. Today, he is leading the narrative, front pages of all the papers, threatening to stand in Nadine Dorries’ seat and warning he’ll be back.

We see a battle once again beginning for what is being described as “the heart” of the Conservative Party. I haven’t see any evidence that the Conservative Party has a heart for years. If they do it must be a black and shrivelled thing kept in a battered shoe box.

Michael Hesltine on Channel 4 last night called Boris Johnson unprincipled, dishonest and talked of his “ruthless exploitation of populism”. There are suggestions that Boris Johnson will stage a coup of sorts. Rees-Mogg has warned the party not to block him if he stands. Johnson’s honours list puts more of his cronies in the Lords, rewards others with knighthoods and gongs, buying loyalty perhaps?

This surely is the concern. We have seen an increase in what is being called National Conservatism. Coincidentally (or not) a party with that name was registered with the Electoral Commission this week too.

Now we have heard that phrase fairly recently. Indeed there was a National Conservative Conference in May at which a number of senior Tory Members spoke.

Dismissed by many as a fringe event it nonetheless raises cause for concern. Speakers talked of “majority rights”, pleaded for the protection of the “normative family” and railed against the “globalist elites”. Suella Braverman of course targeted trans people and immigrants and the whole thing smacked of the Christian far-right that we see in the US, ripping up women’s rights and preventing sex education whilst people die from gunshot wounds and are bankrupted by health care costs.

And now there’s Boris Johnson let loose. Rishi Sunak has been unable or unwilling to pull him into line and his failure to support Johnson has poked the bear. There are some who think Boris Johnson has or will fatally undermine Sunak and God help us another leadership election? There are calls for a General Election now. I don’t know what’s going to happen but once again Boris Johnson is at the heart of it. Dismissed as a buffoon, he is nothing of the sort. Ruthless, what Eddie Mair called “a nasty piece of work” he is dangerous and manipulative.

Meanwhile we are talking about this whilst figures published last week show 50% of children are living in poverty in some areas of England. Manchester has a 50.8% child poverty rate according to figures published last week.

For Scotland, a Brexit we didn’t vote for, the threats we see to devolution, to our economy, the refusal to allow the Scottish Parliament to legislate freely within the terms of the devolution settlement, the refusal to allow a referendum are all symptoms of a failing state, clinging onto what it thinks make it look strong. No one is fooled. The UK is crumbling and Boris Johnson could very well be positioning himself to be its saviour. We think that people see through him, we think that it will never happen, but we have been wrong before. I’m not sure we’ve seen the last of him yet.

#Indyref2

#YouYesYet

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Yours Controversially – Scotland

So, it appears that Scotland is the most confused country in the world.

There are so many things that are “controversial” here that are not almost everywhere else.

Over the last few years we have seen controversial baby boxes, controversial anti-fracking laws, controversial gender recognition legislation, controversial minimum pricing of alcohol, and now we have a controversial bottle recycling scheme. Or rather we don’t.

Intriguingly all of these things operate well in other countries and curiously don’t appear to be controversial anywhere else!

Lorna Slater, the Green minister is being held responsible by a bunch of people for the delay of the Deposit Return Scheme. A scheme that would encourage recycling by paying people for the bottles and cans that are returned.

This is not a controversial thing to do. It is not a cutting edge, ground breaking, experimental process. It has operated here before – those of us of a certain age can remember taking bottles back to the shop to get money back. In many other countries in Europe and wider, a deposit return scheme exists and works.

No one thinks this is a controversial policy.

Except the UK. The UK Government thinks that a recycling scheme shouldn’t include glass.

Let’s be clear here, the SNP proposed this DRS in 2017 and the SG began consulting on it in 2018. This wasn’t controversial then. The Scottish Tories DEMANDED glass was included. They stood up in Holyrood and pressed for the inclusion of glass. Labour too supported this scheme. The DRS proposed for Wales also includes glass.

But the thing is, that some industry lobbyists don’t want glass included. They argue that it increases the use of plastic, is hard to store and will cost them money. And they lobbied hard and donated hard cash to the Conservative Party who were so convinced by their … argument … that they changed their mind and from demanding glass was included they now demand it is excluded.

There we have it. The Tory Government refused an exclusion to the internal market act, in the same way they imposed a section 35 order, and the DRS is dead in the water.

How this is Lorna Slaters fault is a bit of a mystery to me. There was cross party support, a consultation, a pretty uncontroversial recycling bill stopped by an intransigent UK Government -again.

This is not about the DRS for the Tories. It’s about keeping Scotland on a leash. Chained like the Unicorn in the coat of arms. This is about putting the lid on rebellious Scots. Someone said to me about this the other day “Well, Scotland clearly needs a heavy hand. There were hardly any parties for the coronation”. The Tory elites see Scotland as North Britain. They always have done and always will – that we are different and want to be different baffles them and is seen as a problem, an irritant to be brought into line.

This blocking of what are devolved responsibilities will get worse. Not satisfied with forcing their Brexit wet dream on a Scotland that roundly rejected it, they are using their post Brexit legislation to fundamentally undermine devolution, here and in Wales and Ireland.

Scotland cannot deliver what it has legislated for – again. The UK Government stamps its polished brogues and stops the democratic right of Scotland to choose the policies that best suit Scotland. That’s the controversy here. The undermining of the elected Scottish Government in devolved matters is the controversy if we look properly.

It is becoming clearer every day that Independence is the only way to get the society we want – fairer, better and more environmentally responsible. It’s the only way to protect Scotland from the basket case that is the UK and there’s nothing controversial about wanting that.

#YouYesYet #IndyRef2