Scottish independence

It is clear over the last few years that the SNP are more interested in devolution than independence. It would appear that parliamentary mandate means little in the current climate in the UK

It's moving away from ideas like mass strikes, civil disobedience etc that the SNP will be doing.

As the article alludes to they will sit and wait until the current older generation that see themselves as British are eventually replaced by the current and a new generation that have a greater sense of Scottish identity.

Sturgeon tried to use the differences between her party and the Tories as a vehicle to increase support for independence, trying to protray everything the Tories did as bad and everything the SNP did as good, but that backfired spectacularly.

SNP would be silly to get offside, like the Catalans. Get a max devo of some sort from Starmer and work with that.

The SNP seem to be is a sort of bother.

Arguments over what the membership numbers were.

Membership down 32,000 in two years.

The chief executive resigning, his replacement saying that the party is in a tremendous mess.

Even though it's not at the same level of disarray as the Tories, it hardly bodes well for the SNP if they want to convince people that they are competent enough to run an independent country.

The SNP leadership have been guilty of gerrymandering and corruption for a while now

Beth Rigby interview with Nicola Sturgeon on Sky 9pm tonight.

Just read this .

If true, it is a fairly damning assessment of the Sturgeon / Murrell hold on the party. The reality would seem to be very much at odds with the public persona of Sturgeon as the capable leader.

Either way it does seem the SNP 'brand' is damaged in the short to medium term. And with it the pathway to independence.

There is no wonder the SNP brand is damaged. Also the pathway to independence was a cull de sack from day one. Voters just didn't want to see that as the playbook was always the depressed minority within the UK and the evil of Westminster. ( Westminster, the ones who paid for everything the SNP promised.....)

There are far to many domestic problems in Scotland, starting from the Scottish NHS, to education issues. Also Scotland is sadly leading the number of drug deaths in Europe. Sturgeon also had no real succession planning upon her departure, no leader in waiting nothing of that sort. She also failed twice on the referendum issue, lost the first referendum, and the second one was overruled by the supreme court. Also when Sturgeon announced that she was stepping down, there was some kind of police enquiry into SNP finances.

Also the SNP is having a massive loss of party members recently. Sturgeon has been taking the Scottish votes for a ride for many many years, and I believe she left, before anybody is really smart enough to pin all these failures on her.

Maybe some Irish take fun into the idea of Scottish independence, but from a reasoning point of view, it's way better it never ever happens.

So even though education and health have been devolved since 1999 the excuse for them being in poor shape under the SNP for the last so many yeay is that Westminster aren't giving Scotland enough money to run them correctly?

Who is the smart money on here?

A party built on the flag of independence will by its nature, be a broad church. You have both christian and social democrats in the one party. It is in effect a coalition. Hard to keep that as one over a longer period of time.

The Scottish government can only allocate expenditure from what resources it receives, mainly in the block grant. And that is set in Westminster .It cannot decide to tax the City financial institutions in order to spend more on health and education.

Yousaf won but not by an overwhelming number.

Final tally was Yousaf 26,032 and Forbes 23,890 after distributing Regan's vote.

So endorsement for continuity, but not by much