It’s spreading – the realisation that many in new media have spoken about for some time has been spreading wider a field now to the mainstream media, and even to the Leader of the Alba Party Alex Salmond, there will not be a referendum on Scottish independence in 2023, in my own opinion I don’t think there will be one 24 and possibly 25/26 either to be honest as I have noted in the comments section on this blog.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the SNP have, for now, had and missed their chance to take Scotland out of the Union. (Chris Deerin)
Events have been allowed to dictate the public mood, Brexit , Covid-19, and now the cost of living crisis and the the war in the Ukraine, added on top of the cowardice and fear within the leadership of the SNP and you have the result that the prospect of another referendum has spread to even many in the movement, as I said the realisation that it is just not going to take place any time soon.
As Deerin points out “A poll by Savanta ComRes published on 18 March found that 59 per cent of Scots believed discussions about the timing of a second referendum should be put on hold due to the Russian war on Ukraine, including 43 per cent of SNP voters. Fifty-two per cent felt that the cost-of-living crisis also justifies a halt. I accept that Nicola Sturgeon cannot control the events that have plagued us in the last few years, they are unprecedented in many ways in my lifetime, but it is also clear that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP have clearly missed the boat and let us all down.
Joyce McMillan writing in the Scotsman (Hootsmon) said “it often seems almost impossible to raise the question of further disruptive change, amid the current maelstrom of global crises”. The war had bolstered Boris Johnson’s reputation following the “partygate” scandal, and the ongoing Covid pandemic had reduced public appetite for debating independence”. It is hard to disagree anymore that the boat has sailed in the eyes of many, to the relief of the unionists and their media pals, and to the soft no’s in Scotland who just need any excuse to remain a no.
Sturgeon, curiously, continues to insist that a referendum will be held by the end of 2023, even though the most fervent nationalist must accept by now that this is next to impossible under current timescales and conditions. The moment is slipping away, not just from Sturgeon, but also perhaps for a generation – certainly for more than five years.
Deerin also talks about the danger to the SNP of a Labour Government being elected in England, personally I find that unlikely in the next few years unless the cost of living crisis becomes a new pandemic, but I guess it is not impossible, but it does lead me to depressingly have to agree with Deerin that the boat has well and truly sailed and the failure for me is not only what Mcmillan once said
Harold Macmillan was once asked what the most troubling problem of his Prime Ministership was.‘Events, my dear boy, events,’was his reply.
It is the failure of Nicola Sturgeon and the cowards (sorry gradualists) like Wishart, Smith, Russell, Robertson, Blackford to act when the going was good after Brexit that has betrayed us all to the extent that I no longer believe that I will see an independent Scotland in my lifetime. They will go down in history as not only some of the poorest politicians ever elected in Scotland, but as the SNP leadership who embraced British Nationalism in pretty much all of it’s glory.
“we cannot give up, we cannot accept that our future, our fate, our destiny lays in the inevitable slow decay of a Tory controlled Scottish Colony” (Me)
However, unlike Deerin and others, we cannot give up, we cannot accept that our future, our fate, our destiny lays in the inevitable slow decay of a Tory controlled Scottish Colony. We may not have the guts of those in the former Empire, and those in the Caribbean today to throw off the disgusting remnants of British rule in Scotland but as long as there are at least 100 of us still standing we have to fight on, we have to keep going, we have to stand tall. We’re Scottish, and like 1707, we have been betrayed by the very people we trusted to deliver our emancipation but that just means we keep putting one foot in front of the other for the sake of those that will come along after us.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
2023 is a lie that needs stopped being told. No preparation and the questions from 2014 remain unanswered. Why the pretence ?
Derek
People need to accept it now and move on to a party that will actually work to move us forward, that is not the SNP any longer, the future is Alba and ISP now and that is where my vote will lay.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
The pretence Derek, is to keep the sheeple voting SNP or simply to hold onto power.
Don’t know that it’s going to work out this time around though. About 50% of Indy supporters in my circle have moved to Alba. As for the remainders quite a few have said 2023 was the last chance saloon.
Fact is, for years now there has been little or no work done behind the scenes to prepare for a referendum.
Time to park this particular gravy train.
Nally, just how many last chance salons do they need to visit to accept the bloody obvious. What is wrong with these people.
You’re right. How many of the 2023 last chance saloon SNPers have said the same thing before. Probably more than once.
All we have left is hope . We also hope that Scotland has new leadership soon to challenge the status quo , to challenge elitism, to challenge the negativity of the Yoon mob. To prove that Scotland is worth fighting for and not just for our future but every day . We need someone who has that determination in our corner .
Pauline
Even when I think that it is all over I try to focus on those of us keep going, new media like BarrheadBoy, people like yourself who comment on the blog, the ones who won’t give up, ever. People need to wake up and see that the SNP and Sturgeon are now the past, they really don’t matter any more as far as independence is concerned as they are not believers anymore they are pretty much devolutionists. The future has to be Alba and ISP if we are to keep moving forward and keeping the dream alive. Even when I feel like giving up I keep going, it’s all we can do really.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
The S30 route to Independence has sailed. It left port a few years ago and got shipwrecked somewhere on the other side of the world.
But there are other routes … these are what we should not give up on. The work of the Scottish Sovereignty Research Group covering dissolution of the Treaty of Union/Claim of Right and the decolonisation/United Nations routes I believe will outline the alternatives that exclude Westminster/any foreign government.
I note that Alex Salmond said yesterday as well that Alba would be calling for a convention of politicians and civic Scotland after May’s local authority elections. That may well be part of the same strategy (See https://www.thenational.scot/news/20020522.alex-salmond-snps-indyref2-plans-not-credible/).
Duncanio
Alba / ISP are the only road ahead now for Scotland. The SNP have given up on independence in my opinion and there needs to be a new strategy and a new focus. I’m not giving up and even though I sometimes feel like it we need to keep going to keep the dream alive because there is nothing else for it.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Its more sinister than what Mr Salmond is saysing, because even if she held a Ref she’s want us to lose it and so would her MSP and MP apart from one or two.
You only need to look back at what NS has said and done for the last 8yrs to realize she not bothered about a Ref or Scottish Independence and that NS is happy to blame Westminster and the New SNP aren’t even bothered if the UK offered them more powers, because they can’t run a country with the powers they do have.
I have no idea why certain bloggers and Indy supporters still think she going to deliver and what they think it is she going to deliver because it aint Independence.
For those of us who can remember back to just after the 2016 election, straight away Pete Wishart was stating we shouldn’t hold a Ref until after 2021 and here we are its 2022 and now being promised one in 2023 and the New SNP wanting to put Devo-Madmax on the ballot paper even the Unionist don’t want that, that sums up the New SNP commitment to restoring our country nationhood to the world stage.
I do not support The National its a red Herring with no Indy intentions what so ever, to throw away your money on buying this paper or to support the New SNP your doing more damage to indy than any unionist can ever do.
100%YES
They are a devolution party now really and you’re right they can’t even govern with the powers that they have and their governance has been pretty much crap since Sturgeon took over. I really don’t get how people still fall for her crap, she has been found out. The future is Alba / ISP now to keep the dream alive and I suppose that’s all we can do is keep going.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Looking back over what NS has done over the last eight years and wondering what she has achieved??!
There’s a question!
I suspect that her absolute commitment to allowing the country and its institutions to be captured by the most fashionable political theories of the time, has been for her both a personal triumph and a political success.
I believe that no matter how much any of us little people believe these are, on the contrary, the most repressive and retrograde policy changes ever made in a country, nor how many public intellectuals (I’m thinking of Kathleen Stock and Abigail Shrier here just for example, not to mention many contributing bloggers) have demonstrated repeatedly and with forensic precision, that these currently fashionable political theories are rationally incoherent, I believe that adherents of said theories, having now built their principles into the heart and soul of the country’s social substructure, distributed them perniciously among the social body, have by so doing in fact prepared the country for a glorious future of independence, acting as a beacon of woke for other aspiring small countries to follow. I genuinely believe that they genuinely believe they have won a great victory over backwardness and that their manifest violence is simply made invisible by their zealotry.
Sturgeon herself is a prime example; she seems to me to be utterly indifferent to the effects of what she has been doing. Which does surprise me. She must have some inkling that she is wielding power over society. She was certainly quite explicit about what she felt should happen to AS, and was happy to see the Scottish judicial system misused most perniciously to lock up CM. The only real conclusion to be drawn is that she has been thoroughly brought under the protective canopy of the systems of power and sinecure that comprise the British State. She must realise at some level that this is what has happened to her.
But she still wears the mantle of independence?!! Doesn’t she?
When AS handed her the baton in 2014, did she actually have any idea of the responsibility and significance of this?
I also wonder how long it took Alex to realise that he had perhaps made an error of judgement.
It would be nice to think that when the woke collapses, Sturgeon’s psyche will crumble to dust.
These are simply thoughts and observations. Thank you for provoking me to express them.
Duncan
Sturgeon can’t see past her own crap because she can’t ever be questioned because she can’t ever be wrong even when anyone with a brain can see that for the most part she is following the failed neo liberal policies of the Tory party with an SNP Tartan Tory flag draped around her. She has surrounded herself with gender warriors and incompetents who are just stupid enough to not be a threat to her dictatorship. She has done her very best to turn the SNP into a poor mans devolution party who have as much ambition for Scotland as Scottish Labour does while saying just enough to keep the sheeple in line and her incompetents living the life of Riley fromt he scraps of the British table. I cannot express how much I loath the betrayal of Sturgeon for fear of the Hate Crime Bill that pretty much ensures that we can’t really have a go at our dictator for fear of a visit from the state Police so I agree with everything you have said.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Your remark about the Labour Party is particularly apposite and just a tad terrifying.
Many of us here lived through Labour’s hegemony over Scotland during the 70s and 80s and saw the bully boy tactics employed by the Millies for example. Imagine how much more full of themselves and aggressive they would have been if they had had a HCB or equivalent and held the power in government!!!!
This is what the SNP has now become. It’s Labour Party power with Tory policies.
Sends a shiver down the spine.
Thanks for you continued resistance to the thought police.
Duncan
Sadly I agree that the SNP the Labour Party with a tartan Tory tinge now, they are not serious about independence anymore and Sturgeon just gets more incompetent as the day is long.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
The SNP under Sturgeon are a complete disaster. They can’t even launch a couple of ferries so how will they launch a newly-independent country out into the world? A good quote I saw on Twitter stated that in the unlikely event of us becoming independent under the SNP, Sturgeon would be more concerned that her negotiating team was gender balanced.
After the way they sold off our renewables, would you seriously trust them to negotiate with the dark side after a Yes vote? We’d end up keeping Trident, giving them all the oil so she can get another selfie with wee Greta, and paying them a huge share of the debt while claiming none of the assets.
Dave
No faith or trust in Sturgeon in any shape or form, over rated in every way and by far the worst FM we have had or least up there with McConnell anyway. The SNP are not serious about independence anymore, too much for their delicate little minds and they found they like the crumbs from the British table just like the quislings in 1707.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
“Launch ferries” – that lot are probably too busy arguing over what gender each ferry is.
Events indeed. When you look at all the problems on the table right now. All could have been solved with independence and politicians who were not pursuing a globalist, virtue signalling agenda in order to keep their nests feathered.
The Four Nations approach to the pandemic mandated that everything England does we have to do too, with a couple of weeks delay as a fig leaf covering Sturgeon’s embarrassment. With independence, we could have responded in any way we choose. It might not have had better outcomes but it would have been different. Cases and deaths are surging once more but yet we pretend the problem does not exist.
The country is awash with energy. Why are our citizens facing some of the highest bills in the union. Now look at Ukraine. Europe can’t wean itself off Russian oil and gas fast enough. The Norwegians must be having sleepless nights thinking about the amount of money they’re going to make in the next few years. Their Sovereign Wealth Fund will be so large they can all go on holiday for the rest of their lives.
Independence might not be better but it certainly could never be worse. England is a millstone dragging us down in a return to Victorian values – poverty and despair for the many, untold riches for the few.
Stuart
Totally agree, independence has always been about democracy for me no matter if we were better or worse off. We cannot solve our problems if we are not willing to stand on our two feet and take on the challenges. Broken Scotland would rather allow a larger country to make all its big decisions for it while robbing it blind, cowards that what we are as a collective, we don’t even deserve to think of Scotland as a country or us as Scots, we’re just as much English as the English as long as we are not willing to stand on our two feet, in fact that might be my next blog.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Well said, Stuart.
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
You’re being extremely generous to the SNP leadership describing them as gradualists. I’ve long since stopped believing that the problem is fear of losing. That presupposes that they have an interest in independence and they’re not just concerned about their vastly inflated salaries or even that they’re just unionists.
AW
Yeah that is a fair point, they like the crumbs too much from the colonist table don’t they. Alba and ISP the last best hope I think now but all we can really do is keep going as best we can.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Right at the beginning of Sturgeons leadership she made a strange comment claiming she suffered from imposter syndrome. This is the only time this woman has told the truth
Alastair
Did she, never knew that.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
If you were to sit down and compile a scenario of how to stop a country becoming independent, you would paint a picture of exactly what Sturgeon has done over the last seven and a half years.
Having said that I have been of the opinion for a considerable time that we are independent and have never been anything but.
The act of union did not extinguish us as a country , it simply contracted us to an economic union, just like the EU.
Our only hope is for Sturgeon and her cabal to go , hopefully to jail.
Bob
She has to go Bob she really does, she it a total liability and has been for a long time. Even if we end up with someone like Robertson it might force the sheeple to accept what the new SNP have become, a poor mans BritNat Party in all but name. I have no idea how we move forward but we have to figure out a way to do that as Scotland is dying before our very eyes, we are being worn down little by little by the Tory hate policies and the Tartan Tory incompetence of Sturgeon.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce