Scotland implodes

[Kraken]

For anyone who doesn't understand why the British (English?) are typically right wing and cherish the fact we do politics differently to our European neighbours, Scotland is currently a really rather hilarious example of what the British left are capable of.

Under the benevolent reign of Queen Elizabeth II, we decided to throw the always really quite whingy Scots a bone and let them have a Parliament and Government of their own. it's not quite freeeedom, but they can mow their own grass and shit. Like Florida. That was 1999.

Because they like to feel special, going against centuries of tradition, their Parliament uses that continental system that is supposed to be fairer. It was also supposed to prevent the Scottish nationalists from gaining an absolute majority. Because y'know, they might have invaded England.

You kinda new this would be a failure, because it was the brain child of left wing politicians. And it was. With their extraordinary talent for political failure, the left led hand holding coalitions of Scotland oversaw three terms with a reduced majority each time, the third defeat opening the door to a minority nationalist government. Which they then turned into an absolute majority in 2007. It has been that way until the 2020s.

So in less than a decade, the British left had effectively lost part of our country to a party that hates our country. Good job! But it wasn't all bad. In this context, the nationalists are actually to the left of the British left. Pinkos in tartan. Sexy.

Unsurprisingly, because they're also left wing, they fucked it up too. Not only did their primary mission, independence, fail, their social record was a failure. What a shock. By the 2020s, they were having to rely on the support of the Greens. Which is normal for Europe, but decidedly weird for the UK, where the Greens are seen as deeply deluded, a tiny fringe party. Which under the Scotland means they're a slightly bigger tiny party. Now the king makers.

This doesn't mean the rest of the UK is a threat to the environment. Because the UK right wing are true democrats, when there is the public support, they integrate green policies into their agenda. Net zero targets are now in law. Under a right wing government. Not sure why this approach hasn't occurred to the left, but they never do make much sense.

So yeah, the Scottish left tried to paint this nationalist-green partnership as a new dawn in politics. Touchy feely. Partnership. Cooperation. Blah blah. The left does love to message. Not so great with results.

The result? They fucked it up. Their always gobby leader resigned unexpectedly, soon explained by the fact she had been arrested under suspicion of embezzlement of party funds. So left wing. Depite their strong position, she'd been quite the demagogue, centralizing power, very paranoid. So very left. Debunking the myth women can do politics better. Oh, and she had also prosecuted her male predecessor and former mentor for rape. It was thrown out as a total joke. He's now understandably started a splinter party, further endangering the nationalists majority. So very left.

So unsurprisingly, her replacement has been in a weak position, on the back foot, ever since he as appointed in March 2023. His genius idea was to double down on the woke agenda introduced by his predecessor. And double down on her already doomed independence push.

He has been a complete and total failure. And because the left can't run a country for shit, their chickens have come home to roost. They'd been buying votes by giving away free shit for years. Free drugs. Free travel. Free college. While also making a total balls up of building ferries in their newly nationalised shipyards. Corruption, over budget, delays, obvious huge expensive job creation scheme is obvious. So very left (especially in the UK, where nationalised industry is a byword for failure).

The projected economic boom has not materialised. Now they can't pay their bills. Massive black hole in their budget. It evidently came as some surprise to them that with the power to set the budget, comes the responsibility of paying the bills.

The first casualty? Green commitments. Massively costly.

The second casualty? Woke shit (also beloved by the Greens). Get ordinary voters back on side.

So to make it happen, the nationalist-green partnership has been dissolved.

Now the government is in peril.

A vote of no confidence is in motion. So the figurehead of Scottish independence, who had gone all in on an independence strategy tied to the next UK and Scottish elections as de facto referendums (he was never really clear which!), is now unlikely to even be the leader for those elections.

So now nobody has a clue what's going to happen, short or long term, due to the inherent instability of the continental model. The left are making hypocritical calls for an election NOW because this joke of a leader was never actually elected, knowing fine well this is (or would be for the rise of nationalism it spawned) is exactly how the Scottish system they designed is meant to work. Group hugs and kumbaya, right?

It's hilarious.

This won't be the end of the fun either. For Scotland, it probably just means a return to the original left wing coalitions of the late 90s. Like that's going to work now that they don't have any money or even hope.

The truly funny part. It's highly likely the right will lose the next UK election. Run out of steam and ideas, even of basic legitimacy. Worth nothing that this is precisely because they went against what works in the UK system and deposed a leader elected with a huge majority, for internal short term small time almost petty reasons. Twice they've done that in the last 50 years, and both times it has led to their least successful periods, whether in or out of government. It also ultimately gave us Tony Blair, who gave us the Iraq War, and this batshit Scottish system.

But it's mad shit like this Scottish farce of the last decade in particular, economic incompetence and driving through super woke shit and radical green shit that doesn't actually have broad support even among the left, is exactly what usually scares floating voters into veering to the right.

And that will really piss off the Scots, because they have for thirteen years been hoping to be able to leverage the possibly of a nationalist and UK left coalition to have a do-over on independence. Another reason floating voters often veer right. Brits (English) are very patriotic.

Scotland arguably needs to be independent to truly fulfil their apparent popular wish to be a very progressive country. But because they're so shit at fighting (contrary to popular myth) and also so shit at whipping up the enthusiasm of a crowd of ordinary common folk for political gain (contrary to Hollywood myth), well, they're just going to have to sit down, shut up, eat their wheeties, and maybe one day they'll be grown up enough to be allowed to play outside on their own.

[ericbarbour]

You kinda new this would be a failure, because it was the brain child of left wing politicians. And it was. With their extraordinary talent for political failure, the left led hand holding coalitions of Scotland oversaw three terms with a reduced majority each time, the third defeat opening the door to a minority nationalist government. Which they then turned into an absolute majority in 2007. It has been that way until the 2020s.

More or less -- some self-hatred involved maybe?

Unsurprisingly, because they're also left wing, they fucked it up too. Not only did their primary mission, independence, fail

Partly because they "eventually" realized something they had been told for decades prior: Scotland is a very poor "country". The land is shit, mostly too rugged and rocky to grow crops in any quantity. Barely able to support grazing animals. The manufacturing base (heavily leaning towards defense contracting, aerospace and a few other high-margin areas) is mostly in England and Wales. If you don't count silly things like single-malt Scotch whiskey, very few goods are manufactured in modern-day Scotland. Natural resources? Apart from some wind power and a minority share in North Sea oil, doubtful. If they went independent, the tax base would be terrible and the local economy would probably collapse. Loads of people on the dole. So they are quite dependent on the rest of the UK for support. Don't seem to enjoy discussing it openly either.

This doesn't mean the rest of the UK is a threat to the environment. Because the UK right wing are true democrats, when there is the public support, they integrate green policies into their agenda. Net zero targets are now in law. Under a right wing government. Not sure why this approach hasn't occurred to the left, but they never do make much sense.

O RLY

[Kraken]

Various economic models to sustain an independent Scotland have been proposed. Maybe some were viable, but the last decade in particular has probably destroyed them all. The energy situation, debt, climate change, global trade, have all turned for the worse.

All models now have to factor in starting out as an indebted nation with chronic short term investment needs. Difficult indeed when it was always assumed Scotland would be a higher taxing higher spending nation. A progressive paradise. A real curve ball has been stuff like changing attitudes to air travel, land use, ethical consumption, ethical tourism, etc. Again, all seem to work against Scotland.

This is a very bad time to be making the case for independence on economic grounds. But it's proving rather obvious this is the main factor for worried voters. Even those who want it for social justice reasons, over this last decade, have realised that Scotland would simply replicate the UK's issues on a smaller scale, so would have even less headroom to effect change at scale.

[Kraken]

This is more of a slap in the face of the far left than I had even realised.

Ash Regan is mooted as the literal King Maker now...

The SNP have 63 MSPs who can presumably be counted on to support Yousaf and vote against the motion.

The Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems and Greens have 64 MSPs between them who are expected to back the motion.

That would leave Alba's sole MSP Ash Regan with the power to determine the outcome. In such a scenario, if she voted against Yousaf, he would lose 65-63. But if she supported Yousaf, the result would be 64-64, and in the event of a tie the presiding officer casts a deciding vote, which by tradition is always for the status quo - meaning the first minister would win the confidence vote.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz5dp74vel1o

She worked in PR, marketing and event management before returning to Scotland in 2012, when she became active in the Women for Independence organisation....

.....

She joined the SNP after the 2014 referendum, then defeated Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale in the 2016 Holyrood election to become MSP for Edinburgh Eastern.

She was appointed community safety minister by Nicola Sturgeon two years later.

.....

Ash Regan was little known outside political circles until she quit as community safety minister in October 2022 over plans to make it easier for someone to change their legally-recognised gender.

It was the first time an SNP minister had quit over government policy since the party came to power in 2007.

.....

When she joined Alba later in 2023, Ms Regan said the SNP had “lost its focus on independence”.

At the time, Mr Yousaf told BBC Scotland she was "not a particularly great loss" to the party.

.....

She has sent Mr Yousaf her list of demands to secure her support, which included progress on Scottish independence and defending "the rights of women and children"

Some lessons there for Zoloft and company. The woke is stoopid and no great loss stuff, not the leading a popular uprising, obviously.

[ericbarbour]

[Kraken]

He's about to resign.

Scotland just got fucked in the ass by woke.

There will be an election, and through sheer political expediency, while the new government will be left wing, it won't be pursuing any radical identity politics, they won't be aggressively pursuing the green agenda, and they will be quietly dropping the calls for independence NOW!

This will be a holding government, a wait and see what happens at the next UK general election later this year. See if Scottish independence is powerful enough to leverage the Unionist left into doing the unthinkable. In other words, it's the 2010s all over again.

And it didn't need to be this way. The left wing SNP had achieved a political miracle, a majority government in a system designed to stop exactly that. A system designed to promote pluralism.

All they had to do was pursue a sensible course, bring the people with them, offer a sensible independence proposition. And when it was shown there is no such thing, they should have reflected, worked on being a fiscally responsible moderately progressive government, and see if public attitudes to independence had changed naturally once a generation has passed. Say 2034.

But no. They got woke. Succumbed to far left infighting and virtue signalling. #MeToo'd their popular leader, a charismatic white man, who once aquitted, was not minded to forgive of forget what his chosen successor, a feisty young woman, did to him. His independence movement. His life's work.

And because she wasn't the person the left wing newspapers claim she was, some kind of Angel sent from Heaven, because she was a poltician, a really rather divisive one with a natural tendency to the politics of hate, a fondness for far left insularity and even paranoia, and also the corruption, she ruined the whole thing.

With none of the foresight of her former mentor, she left the party in chaos. A lurch further to the left in pursuit of the gender politics that had been the final nail in her coffin, once we saw the truth of her bullshit resignation speech (it's been fun pretending to be the leader of a sovereign country, but now I'm outta hear before I ruin my winning streak or get arrested for embezzlement), was inevitable.

Her successor, Captain Chaos, was a political no-mark. Not a single meritorious act in his career, despite having held several ministries under the previous keader. Her habit of keeping even her own ministers in the dark, powerless, now laid bare. His folly in going along with it, laid bare.

But he got elected by the party faithful for being the only candidate still on board the woke train. And in all likely because he's a Muslim. Chasing the diversity vote when what was needed was the comfort of the familiar. The tartan biscuit tin. it's not a crime to be a charismatic straight white Church of Scotland man leading Scotland to independence. It's so woke It's the stuff of Hollywood myth! it's literally the only thing that ever got them even a chance at independence via the ballot box. The tick of a pencil. Yes!

But no. Follow chaos and division with even more chaos and division. Make it even clearer you think it's all your own voters fault for not being sufficiently progressive.

Typical far left lunacy.

Thanks to woke, the earliest they can expect to be able to hold another independence vote, is probably 2034. And even that assumes Scotland is stupid enough to trust them with power in five years time. The next mainstream left Scottish government would have to be pretty shit for that to happen. But with the likely financial support and advice of a likely mainstream left wing UK government coming into power this year, that probably won't happen.

Dickheads.

[Kraken]

Scotland now headed for a minority government led by a 60 year old white man. Presumably straight, he's a twice married Catholic.

The is a return to a former leader, a career politician whose tenure as party leader in opposition was described as "ineffectual" by Wikipedia. He is the quintessential establishment candidate, a much needed return to what you know. Such a safe pair of hands in the face of an existential crisis, it's looking like he will stand unopposed.

Being Deputy First Minister under the First Minister now under police investigation for embezzlement of party funds isn't the black mark you think it might be, given she was renowned for keeping government small. Like, three people. One of whom was her husband.

So Scotland is now on its second "unelected" head of government courtesy of the SNP, even though that is the way our democracy is supposed to work, we elect parties not leaders. Something that never used to stop the SNP attacking other parties for exactly this kind of 'undemocratic " musical chair stuff. So that becomes get another way they can be made to look like unprincipled dicks in the never-ending Twitter War of Scottish Independence.

Wikipedia is of course so helpful giving us a blow by blow account of his political career....

As Finance Secretary, Swinney was faced with the 2008 financial crash, which resulted in the Scottish economy entering recession.[80]

"This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2024)" No shit.

So inclusion, another resounding success for Team Woke, given the SNP are the only party far enough to the left to want to introduce stuff like self certification of gender identity, even then only when they're feeling radical. Which isn't now.

Good job!

[ericbarbour]

The UK press covers the story with their usual "panache"

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceq3w7lq95jo

Imagine how many "activists" are screaming and spluttering right now? "Another fucking old white man" etc. etc.