We have all seen some of the fall out from the Wings Over Scotland article yesterday, and some of you commented on the blog and expressed your opinion which was great thanks, but this whole debate has taken a new twist that pretty much confirms now that the SNP has become the Church of the latter day Nicola. Tom Arthur, the SNP MSP for Renfrewshire South, has said that no-one who promotes Wings Over Scotland is “fit to be an SNP member”. Herald journalist Neil Mackay has called on Nicola Sturgeon to “look into” the amplification of the blog by elected representatives in the SNP because many shared articles during the 2014 Independence Referendum and two may have shared Stuarts article yesterday, MacKay noted “If it is the case that this was shared or distributed or amplified by elected representatives, then I would very much like the SNP and Nicola Sturgeon as party leader to look at this please when they have the time to do so. Thank you.” Mackay had previously written: “I’ve been told SNP MPs Kenny MacAskill and Joanna Cherry were sharing and liking a hate blog which sought to attack me using a sexual offence against my daughter, sectarian dog whistles and my nationality. If true, should I presume they hadn’t read what they’re were amplifying?” The Scotsman claims that it is also understood that complaints have been submitted to the SNP in relation to the two MPs, who have been accused of promoting the blog after its publication last night. One party source told The Scotsman: “It’s insane. The party needs to do something.” In my opinion though if there is one person who should not be calling anyone out it is Neil MacKay given his recent journalistic history that is for sure.
We have all seen the Kirsty Blackman order to any of the candidates in the fixed list selection process for the May Election that they have to sign her trans pledge or they won’t get her endorsement, we saw yesterday that the Linda Fabiani SNP MSP led enquiry voted for a second time to exclude the Alex Salmond evidence, along with help from the increasingly disappointing Andy Wightman MSP, we have seen the increasing secrecy around the SNP National Executive Committee decision making, the Police Federation have warned that the proposed new hate crime legislation in Scotland could “paralyse freedom of speech” and “devastate” the relationship between the public and the police. Joanna Cherry SNP MP accused the party of an “unhealthy” tendency to shut down debate and warned it was damaging to “put all your faith on one person”. Some YES supporters have renamed the SNP the NSP (Nicola Sturgeon Party). Some in the SNP appear to have seriously lost the plot, trying to tell people what they can and cannot read is just plain ridiculous and out of the communist play book of the 80’s, to tell people that if they think a certain way they should be put out of the party is a very dangerous path to follow. We have all seen what the witch hunts are doing to the Labour Party, is that what the SNP are going to become, is that the legacy of Nicola Sturgeon, the death of the SNP.
Freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience or ideas) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others’ viewpoints. I would argue that when we start to dictate to other people what they can and cannot read, what they can and cannot say in their own home, when everything becomes a secret and you can exclude evidence in a public enquiry to protect individuals who work for you or are in your leadership you are crossing a very fine line. Benjamin Franklin said “Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom & no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech”, he was not wrong was he.
I want independence as much as anyone but certain people in the SNP are now making any vote a moral vote for many of us, can we set aside our morals, our sense of justice, our decency and vote for a party that in some areas appears more in line with UKip than a modern forward thinking party. I really hope that the decent, honest, open minded members of the party can somehow get rid of this cult infecting the SNP before it is too late, if it not already too late, the party might be riding high in the polls, they may even do well in May, but the longer these people remain in control of the SNP independence will become a distant dream and the party will eat itself from the inside out.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
I do not mind that the SNP list candidates in my region are required to sign such affront to democracy because they’re not getting my second vote anyway.
Voting SNP1 & 2 is to waste your list vote.
See: https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/02/17/the-both-votes-snp-argument/
Willie
I live in Dundee so the SNP have never had my list vote anyway as a total waste of time, I went Green previously but no way I am voting for those gender deniers again. I will go ISP probably on the list, it is the constituency one I am really struggling with now as I disagree with most of the SNP policies now in the main and the capture by the minorities have turned the party into a cult in my opinion and it gets worse every day, how can anyone turn up their nose and support them. So many of my friends are the same boat now as well, desperate for independence but loath to give any support to Sturgeon and the likes of Blackman, Dornan etc. They have destroyed this party.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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It’s too late I’m afraid. It’s already happened and it’ll take at least, another 10 years to create a pro-independence party in the way that Salmond brought about. Even then, it’s highly likely that the same thing or similar will happen again. The Brits aren’t for giving up. Ever.
Ian
True the Brits will never give their last main colony easily that is for sure, I do live in hope thought that the decent members of the SNP can sort it out before it’s too late but they are running out fo time.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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The party to me has morphed from the SNP to the NSP (Nicola Sturgeon Party) I am just waiting fo the final morphing by adding the letters D&A into the title to become the NSDAP, where dissent is disallowed and only blind faith in her holiness will be tolerated, not the party I joined, but that is the party that left me and I can no longer fully support it, my MSP Kate Forbes will still get my first vote, but I will not give the SNP my list vote, and I am not sure if I can vote for it in Westminster if Ian Blackford remains candidate, this might actually be the last time I vote for the party I have voted for since I could walk into an election booth back in 1993
Wullie
I have heard similar from people I know and none of it needed to happen at all and because of what, the idea that Alex Salmond might return to politics and the minority forcing policies on Scotland that many don’t understand, don’t agree with and are not ready for. They are debating the Citizens assembly report just now and you just know it’s all crap, they will act on the simplest ideas and all the rest will be ignored, Holyrood was supposed to be different but is just the same as Westminster, maybe even worse in some ways. I will definitely struggle to support them in even the constituency in May and I don’t think I will be alone in Dundee on that one.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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Many of the constituency candidates are the choice of the Branch, and are not of the woke cabal persuasion. Mine – like Joanna Cherry – has signed the Women’s pledge. So the SNP1 it is – this time.
I will vote ISP on the list as I would like a real Independence supporting Party presence in Holyrood to hold the feet of the SNP leaders to the fire.
bjsalba
I will vote ISP on the list as well, used to vote Green but not with their stance on the stupid policies that are going through right now. I really am undecided on the constituency vote because I am so disgusted with the SNP right now and what it appears to be becoming. It has been taken over by a cult and while many think Nicola Sturgeon is popular I suspect if many knew what was actually going on then their views may well be different. I think there is a cult at the heart of the SNP, an undemocratic and intolerant one, one that is slowly but surely destroying the party and I hope the members can fix it but I sadly doubt anyone can and that leaves Scotland the loser because none of this needed to be happening at all. You are correct though at least constituency candidates are still selected from the local party if they have gotten through national vetting, that is at least something.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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No, it’s a party with about 100,000 members – all of whom have their own priorities and ideas about the way forward. It’s impossible to know how many of the tens of thousands who joined after 2015 did so with an objective they regard to be more important than independence.
In all too many cases, some of those were mutually incompatible. What we are seeing is the result of that – and it was always going to be like this. Tearing up your membership may feel good, but it’s absolutely foolish. You lose the ability to vote whenever the party holds one. You can’t do anything about the office bearers and candidates you don’t like in your region. You won’t even be able to help select the next SNP leader if Sturgeon is brought down and forced out. How’s Alex ever going to get back in charge if his loyal followers have all left?
By quitting, you’ve played into your enemies’ hands. You reduce their internal opposition by one vote and that only entrenches them. I know it’s hard, but clearly the SNP is no longer the party it was in 2014. You simply cannot go from, what was it, 20,000 to 100,000 members without things changing.
Eyes on the ball. We’re so close, please don’t screw this up.
It’s almost as self-destructive as demanding to be taken off the electoral register just before IndyRef2. But yes, I’m already seeing hints of “I won’t vote for Indy, not with Sturgeon in charge”. Only us Scots could fuck up like this. Christ.
Alan
I will always vote for indy, even if Nicola Sturgeon is still in charge, but I do think she is becoming more of a liability now and those she has surrounded herself with. I know they are doing well in the polls and may well win the election but I am not sure how long that will last if things keep going the way they are going right now.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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See this comment on Wings: https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-flies-in-the-ointment/#comment-2615334
“Mr Bruce Hosie says:
19 February, 2021 at 9:08 am
To be honest I was thinking yesterday that they might still not publish and if that happens all of the other members should resign immediately from the process, Alex Salmond should refuse to attend and those of us with a degree of decency have a serious think about how we vote in May. If they don’t publish then I am sorry but not one of them deserve our vote.”
That’s a perfect example of what I was talking about. The idea of not voting for the SNP on the list has been circulating for so long that it’s spreading to the constituency ballots.
Alan
I have never voted for them on the list either way in my area but the thought of keeping Sturgeon and what I think is her cult in place is very difficult to swallow. I really don’t expect many to agree with me at all but it is how I feel right now. I hate feeling this way about the SNP and the way forward but I just can’t see myself turning a blind eye to what they are doing, to turn a blind eye to it for me is condoning it and I just can’t do that. I totally respect others can have a different opinion and they need to vote on what they believe and what they think is best and that is as it should be. I can only talk for myself and share some of the opinions of those around me, and I accept that is not representative of the country, but there is a lot of anger out there and people I know who came to the SNP in 2014/15, some from Labour, just feel completely let down and in a groundhog day. Some feel they left one corrupt party for another and a few will now not vote or vote for someone else, Nicola Sturgeon has done that, the people around her have done that and most people will vote with their heart.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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Alan
I don’t know if they have 100,000 members now as WoS had a letter that seemed to show around 83,000 members. I left the party in 2016 so I have been gone a long time. I still have friends who are members who keep me up to date and we do chat and sadly many of them don’t feel that much can be done to remove the minority cult from their positions. I live in hope that the members can bring about some change and of course you are correct for those threatening to leave now they then remove their voice from the decision making process but I have read some people say that the decision making now is so centralised within the leadership that ordinary members have little influence. Maybe the party got too big and many of those who joined had priorities that were not the same as those already there but the one policy that should unite everyone is independence but that doesn’t seem to be the case for all and the rumours I’ve seen that Alex Salmond was planning a come back as he was unhappy with the movement towards that goal, and that is why they tried to bring him down and make sure he could never return, don’t know if that is true but it makes sense in a lot of ways. Either way there needs to be real change before it is too late or the party may well be lost and that will set us back years.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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I’m not going to argue the finer details of membership figures. Let’s just agree that the modern SNP membership is somewhere between three and six times as large as it used to be. It quite literally cannot be the same party that it used to be. Regardless of any membership losses, it is still several times the size it was in 2015.
In 2015, ordinary members who had been with the SNP for decades suddenly found themselves outvoted by newcomers five-to-one. I’ve always felt there was an attitude of entitlement among those old-timers, that they were and are entitled to more of a say than all the new folk, many of whom hadn’t campaigned or even voted for the SNP in 2011.
You can change a party by joining it – clearly what has happened to the SNP. Nobody can turn the clock back on this now. Forcing another change – by carrying out a mass purge for example – will simply create another new kind of SNP and nobody can predict what that would end up being.
I think the Yes movement missed a massive opportunity to try and hijack the Scottish Labour party, whose current membership is very small, and move it towards indy-neutral or even pro-indy. It will be very interesting to see if they publish the votes that Monica “No to Indy, yes to IndyRef” Lennon gets compared to Anas Sarwar.
The Scottish Lib Dem party is also massively suspectible to entryism. The Yes movement has the power to flood both parties with tens of thousands of members and squeeze the unionists out.
Alan
You are probably correct and your analysis is better than mine. Change was inevitable and not everyone can agree but the entryists have changed the SNP into something that certainly I don’t recognise anymore. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me as I just express an opinion and sometimes the heart rules the head but I just can’t see where independence comes from now as long as the current leadership of the SNP is in place, for me, rightly or wrongly, I just find them corrupt now. Labour, Tories and Liberals are just as bad, they can’t get off their knees long enough to see or even imagine a better future, a future where they are equals and not servants to people who would not pee on them if they were on fire. It is a sad state of affairs and I have pretty much had enough of many of our politicians now. I do think though that Sturgeon has a lot to answer for to allow this to happen and worse still to support it.
Thanks for commenting. Bruce
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