Good news on independence for a change

In these miserable and frightening times, it’s nice to be able to report some good news for a change, and not just that all over America all these Evangelical Republican Christians are currently demanding to speak to the Rapture manager, the Rapture having failed yet again to take place on its predicted date of Tuesday of this week. Jesus has (holy) ghosted the American right again. This may not be unrelated to the fact that if Jesus were to return, those same MAGA Evangelical Republican Christians would lock him up in a cockroach infested ICE detention centre for being an undocumented Palestinian migrant. In a way it’s a pity that the Rapture is superstitious bollocks, the world would be a much better place without the American conservative religious right. Of course it is possible that all those Rapture predictions were accurate but nobody got taken because the only people who believe them are evil bastards that Jesus would not want to spend time with.

Meanwhile back in the real world, yet another opinion poll has shown majority support for independence in Scotland, and this in the absence of any independence referendum on the horizon and an active and high profile campaign. This week’s poll, carried out by Find Out Now and commissioned by The National not only returns 52% support for independence once don’t knows are discounted, it also shows that both the Labour and Conservative parties are in for a serious electoral humping at both next year’s Holyrood election, and at the next Westminster general election in Scotland, although this is not due until summer 2029.

It is a great relief that the poll, if replicated at the ballot box, would give Scotland a very healthy pro-independence majority in Holyrood with 75 pro-independence MSPs, a majority of 21. This would be made up of 57 SNP MSPs, 18 Scottish Greens – who would become the second largest party represented in the Scottish Parliament. This would be a historic result, the first time in the history of the devolved Scottish Parliament that both the largest and second largest parties in Holyrood are parties which support independence.

The fly in the ointment is that Reform UK would become the third largest party with 17 MSPs, ahead of Labour on 16, the Tories on 13, and the Lib Dems on 8. But that bad news is tempered by the unalloyed joy that both the pantomime dame Jackie Baillie and hapless sneery faced nepo-baby Anas Sarwar could both end up losing their seats. Never mind anything else, that would be worth it just to see the looks on the faces of BBC Scotland’s presenters. With the dark storm clouds of fascism gathering over UK politics, and casting their vile shadow on Scotland too, it is absolutely critical that the next Scottish Parliament has a solid and unassailable pro-independence majority.

Perhaps if this result does indeed come to pass it will teach Labour and above all the Scottish Tories that chasing after Nigel Farage is a vote loser in Scotland. His brand of exclusionary hateful politics just does not have the traction in Scotland that they and the British media would like us to think it does. Prepare to see massive platforming of Reform UK by BBC Scotland in the run up to next year’s Holyrood election as it sets out to prove that Scotland isn’t really that much different from England after all.

This poll confirms that such a Scottish Parliament is within our grasp. Yet again Alba and the other minor pro-independence parties are not looking to be in a position to win any seats at all. Indeed, for all their supporters’ talk of gaming the Holyrood voting system in order to maximise pro-indy representation, voting for one those parties will only allow an anti-independence candidate to win. This is an unpalatable truth which the highly vocal online supporters of these other parties don’t like to hear, but it remains true nonetheless.

In more good news, the same poll also finds that Reform are still unlikely to return a single Scottish MP to Westminster at the next UK general election, meaning that Farage would have failed dismally to “unite the kingdom.” This is despite the fact that Reform has a huge lead over both Labour and the Tories in voting intention in Scotland, by taking votes from Labour and the Tories, Reform is only splitting the anti-independence vote.

A great deal can happen in a couple of months in politics, never mind in three or four years, so polls asking about voting intention for the next Westminster general election must be taken with a bucket load of salt. However, for what it’s worth, at that election, on current polling Labour is set to lose the overwhelming majority of the Scottish seats it won in July 2024, an election which is looking more and more like a death rattle aberration and not the election which marked the triumphant return of the Labour party to political domination in Scotland. The SNP look set to retake all but six of the Westminster seats they lost to Labour in 2024, taking them to 42, the Tories will gain one taking them to six, and the Lib Dems will be on three.

I remain convinced that the next UK general election will be three de facto referendums on independence, one each in Scotland, Wales, and England, and a de facto referendum on Irish reunification in Northern Ireland. The UK cannot survive the election in England of a nakedly English nationalist party as the government in Westminster, yet that is what currently seems to be on the cards, and the BBC, and the British media are pushing hard for that result. Should Reform UK fail to win a single Commons seat in Scotland while sweeping to power in England, the large pro-independence majority of Scottish MPs will have a mandate to disrupt and block by any arcane Westminster procedural means possible, Farage’s attempts to impose his will on Scotland. That is why it is absolutely vital that next year Scotland elects a Scottish Parliament with a solid pro-independence majority, a Parliament which refuses to acquiesce to the demands of Farage’s English nationalists. Decency, compassion and humanity in Scottish politics depend upon it. The Scottish Parliament and a majority of Scotland’s Westminster MPs must be united in their resolution to make Scotland ungovernable by a xenophobic Anglo-British nationalist far right which cannot even scrape together a quarter of Scottish votes, and that with the concerted cheer leading of most of the British media.

The takeaway here is that independence is closer than most might think, and the United Kingdom as it has long been understood is on its last legs. An independent Scotland by the end of this decade is a very real possibility, indeed, a probability.

I am considering starting a new premium subscription service to the blog. All blog articles will continue to be freely available to everyone, as now, but should there be sufficient interest I am thinking of sending out an additional premium subscriber only email piece once per week to everyone who pays a regular monthly subscription fee of £5. Everyone who currently makes a regular monthly PayPal donation to the blog would automatically be added to the premium email list. Please let me know in the comments if you’d be interested.

______________________________________________

I’ve added a new method to make supporting my work easier, you can now donate via Ko-fi

Or click the following link https://ko-fi.com/weegingerdug

Having abandoned Twitter I will be actively posting on BlueSky from now on. You can find me at https://bsky.app/profile/weegingerdug.bsky.social follow me there and I will generally follow back.

This is your reminder that the purpose of this blog is to promote Scottish independence. If the comment you want to make will not assist with that goal then don’t post it. If you want to mouth off about how much you dislike the SNP leadership there are other forums where you can do that. You’re not welcome to do it here.

You can help to support this blog with a PayPal donation. Please log into Paypal.com and send a payment to the email address [email protected]. Or alternatively click the donate button below. If you don’t have a PayPal account, just select “donate with card” after clicking the button. You can also donate by PayPal by using my PayPal.me link PayPal.Me/weegingerdug
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/weegingerdug