[Arrowhead]

This all seems a bit odd. If I were an SNP strategist, I wouldn’t even remotely be thinking of Indyref2 until support for independence was polling consistently around the 55%-to-60% mark over a sustained period of time. Current polling is nowhere near that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This all seems a bit odd. If I were an SNP strategist, I wouldn’t even remotely be thinking of Indyref2 until support for independence was polling consistently around the 55%-to-60% mark over a sustained period of time. Current polling is nowhere near that.

That's my basis for an Indyref but surely not surprising the SNP see it differently?

I don't know how this will go. Could wear thin with some. Even Labour leadership campaigns take less time than this. But also, it's making independence a central plank of the Scottish Government's programme, which it hasn't really been (explicitly) since 2014.

Probably about 50-50 then.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Will unionists turn up? A big legitimacy problem, if not. Perhaps that’s the game; Westminster ride roughshod over Scotland’s democracy. Sturgeon could even lose for bothering people with unnecessary voting.

Unionists very likely to boycott the vote, I'd have thought.

[Youngian]

Sounds a little last chance saloon, her plans rely on a Tory government.

Johnson’s bound to make the wrong moves and gets Scottish backs up even more.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Odd thing about the general election being a referendum on independence. 16-18 and non-Brits won't be able to vote. Both of these groups would likely be good for Yes, I should think.

[The Weeping Angel]

Curious how many SNP MPs end up in court isn't it?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-62589375

An MP has pled guilty to breaching Covid rules after travelling by train despite knowing she had the virus.

Margaret Ferrier spoke in parliament in September 2020 while awaiting the results of a Covid test.

She then took the train home to Glasgow after being told she had tested positive.

Ferrier admitted that she had culpably and recklessly exposed the public to the virus ahead of a trial at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

She was elected as an SNP MP but lost the whip and now sits as an independent.

Margaret Ferrier: Who is the MP who broke Covid rules?
The charge stated that she had failed to self isolate and had "exposed people to risk of infection, illness and death".

Sentence was deferred pending background reports until next month.

The MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West took a Covid test on Saturday 26 September because she had a "tickly throat".

While awaiting her results, she went to church on the Sunday and gave a reading to the congregation, and later spent more than two hours in a bar in Prestwick, Ayrshire.

[Watchman]

As opposed to Conservative ones?

[The Weeping Angel]

As opposed to Conservative ones?

True but Ferrier isn't a one off either and I'm referring to the period sicne 2015.

[Watchman]

I wasn’t sure of your direction of travel; are you saying:- the legal system is bias against MSP’s, or
more MSP’s are wrong ‘un’s compared to other political parties.
All this setting aside the fact that there are so many Conservative MP that should have had their collar felt but haven’t

[The Weeping Angel]

Merely making an observation. I don't think the SNP are all wrong uns or that the justice system is biased against them either just making an observation.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It's GERs day. Never the best day for the SNP. Here's an actual MSP. By this reckoning, Scotland leads the world in incompetent/dishonest/treasonous government statisticians who put the figures together.

Wouldn't it be better to accept the figures, and point out that they're only this way because of the Barnett Formula? "Do you trust Tories to keep that?" should be the argument. I can't say I trust them to do that.

[Youngian]

Professor Murphy “hasn’t gone in to it too deeply.”

[Tubby Isaacs]

Stephanie has been at it again today, back with a meme. There's depressingly a market for this stuff below the line.

These accusations of Scottish Government statisticians ought to lead to the whip being withdrawn.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not content with telling the ONS and Scottish Government how to produce statistics, Richard Murphy's also been making a tit of himself by trying to lecture lawyers on law. His genius position seems to be that people he doesn't like shouldn't get legal representation.

[Abernathy]

The UK Supreme Court today has begun considering whether, on the basis of the last set of elections to the Scottish parliament (which again delivered an electoral endorsement of the governing SNP), First Minister Sturgeon therefore has the right to institute a further referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent nation, something which has already been forcefully denied by the UK government, as well as the UK’s official opposition, the Labour Party. The court is probably going to take a moth or so, apparently, to deliver their verdict.

It seems unlikely that the court will grant that Sturgeon has the right to run a second referendum, in which case Sturgeon has already said that she will treat the next election to Holyrood as a de facto second referendum on Scottish independence. The SNP may well win the next Holyrood election and return again to government, though not if Labour has anything to do with it.

So what then happens if this scenario comes to pass? Does Sturgeon go for UDI ?

Answers on a (virtual) postcard, if you please, Mailwatchers.

[Arrowhead]

I genuinely don't understand why Sturgeon seems so determined to rush into this. The polling isn't especially supportive right now (I mentioned at the top of the page about the dangers of revisiting this until polling is consistently rooted around the 55%-60% mark over a sustained time), and the very recent experience of Brexit may well have made a significant number of Scottish voters wary about the wisdom of massive constitutional, economic & political upheavals, especially when driven by nationalist sentiment.

Scottish Labour have just had their first discernible upturn in fortunes for what seems an eternity. Perhaps Sturgeon senses that the Tory bogeymen may finally be on their way out of power, which I suppose could in turn suck some of the momentum out of the push for Indyref2, at least for a while.

And as for UDI, I don't think this would be a good time to pick a bun fight with a grandstanding, populist Tory government itching to change the narrative from their economic blunderings. Truss, Braverman, Cleverly etc. are so profoundly cynical they'd probably use it as an excuse to shut down/delegitimise the Scottish parliament. They'd almost certainly spout a load of anti-Labour bollocks in the process ("Reversing yet another disastrous Labour-era policy"), just so English voters got the message loud & clear.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The court case is pretty good political strategy, I think. If they win, the referendum (which the UK won't sanction, and which Unions will boycott) does look more real. And if they lose, then it's also good for the SNP.

[Arrowhead]

The court case is pretty good political strategy, I think. If they win, the referendum (which the UK won't sanction, and which Unions will boycott) does look more real. And if they lose, then it's also good for the SNP.

Is that really the case, though? I would presume Scottish voters currently have very similar pressures and concerns to those in the rest of the country i.e. the cost of living crisis, spiralling interest rates, struggling public services etc. I’m not sure the Holyrood government constantly expending energy re a second referendum looks especially good in the present circumstances.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Nah, the British Government own the present.

[The Weeping Angel]

Well the court went against them

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland- ... s-63727562