Quiet Reflection Part One

Quiet Reflection Part One –  Well another set of elections have come and gone and while disappointing in some ways I have been thinking about where do we go from here? So here are some of my thoughts, please feel free to express your own. These are not based on any legal arguments that others have put forward previously, these are just my thoughts on what I think we need to be considering at this time.

Independence – SNP success in the council elections has been hailed as yet another mandate for independence while Nicola Sturgeon has already started to roll back from the promised referendum in 2023 when she said the day after the council elections

“This election was a local council election, I didn’t go into it arguing that it was all about independence, so I’m not going to come out of it and argue that somehow retrospectively it was all about independence”.

However she did say on the council election manifesto that

“ a vote for the SNP in the May elections then you are voting for democratic principles, the right to decide your own future, independence will give the Scottish people the powers we need to grow the economy, invest in people and public services, to build a fairer, wealthier, and greener country”.

So that was a lie then? She also said on the 2nd May leading up to the vote that,

“I wouldn’t want to go ahead with a referendum that wasn’t legal. “I couldn’t go ahead with a referendum that wasn’t legal because we have a system of checks and balances in this country, Scotland and the UK, that would ultimately lead to the Supreme Court stepping in or considering a case if that was the case”.

As good as conceding that Westminster hold all of the cards and that in reality our democratic future lays with the voters in England and not the voters in Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon is conning us all, every single one of us and the fact that too many are giving Sturgeon the benefit of the doubt is sadly depressing 7 years down the line. I live in hope that the failure to deliver a referendum in 2023 will be both the end of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister and leader of the SNP and the wake up call that will see many in the SNP and the wider YES community having their scales removed from their eyes.

Part of the answer longer term is good governance – My feelings have been clear for a long time, our standard of governance since Nicola Sturgeon became First Minister has been some of the worst since devolution came to be. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted, malicious court cases, gender assassination, character assassination, major mistakes around infrastructure and the ferries, it’s a long long list of failure.

We need to get back to simple levels of good governance starting with a fair funding mechanism for local councils to deliver the things that people see around them. Clean streets matter, your bins being emptied matter, your home help matters, you libraries matter and your adult and youth groups matter.

No more major reforms of the Scottish NHS or Education. We need to concentrate on getting SNHS services open and waiting lists down, that has to be the number one focus for the SNHS, when people see they are being treated in a decent time frame then they will look at you as if you are competent. Likewise with education, less of the sex surveys masquerading under the guise of health and well being and focus on  improving the 3 r’s and sciences. If we can’t get the basics correct then the decline will be terminal, again parents will be happy and young people will have the basics.

No more large infrastructure projects. More money needs to be available to fix what we have already have. Fill the pot holes, tidy up City and Town centre’s, tidy up the parks and open spaces, pretend the Queen is coming and give the country a paint. Again the simple things that people see around them are the things that will convince them that we can manage our own affairs, that we can look after our own and we can do it well. Show the people of Scotland that there is an alternative to the terminal decline of the UK.

Scottish Constitutional Convention –  bring back as a matter of urgency the association of Scottish political parties, churches and other civic groups, and the wider YES community to openly discuss the avenues to the return of Scotland’s statehood and this should not be hamstrung in any way and should be able to look at every option or idea from a plebiscite election, to a referendum, to a declaration of independence, no ideas off the table and no pandering to the unionist media in the discussion of ideas for fear of upsetting the established order.

Tomorrow I will look at a couple of other things that I have been thinking about and again these are just my thoughts.