Concerning Tendency

We see this authoritarian and fascistic impulse too in the behaviour of the party towards those in the party of a more radical or even simply an alternative disposition towards independence. It would not be inaccurate to describe a number of efforts against people who have aligned themselves to a ‘Plan B’ as a purge. Those who have refused to toe the utterly futile Section 30 route to independence have been attacked, left twisting in the wind, and de-selected. One MSP, who will remain anonymous, voiced concerns to me...

Newtonian Political Thinking

Division is an essential component of every healthy democracy, and efforts to end division and contention in political discussion invariably produce the same two cancers in the body politic. In the leadership it fosters an authoritarian attitude which tends towards autocracy and even totalitarianism, and in the mass movement it creates a sheepish dogmatism by which the individual abdicates his or her responsibility to think and reason for his or herself and fuels the impulse to reject every contradiction as heresy. Every so often we get glimpses of these things...

Scotland is Running Out of Time

This is our moment. We have no time left; no time to wait on a signal that might never come, might not even be planned. Action makes things happen, and this is our time to act. We are a democracy, and in democracies the people call the shots and not the elected politicians. We set the agenda and make them dance to our tune. We don’t have a single moment to lose. If we want independence now, and if we don’t want to leave this unresolved for our great-grandchildren to fight anew, now – today – is the time to move without permission.

Rethinking the Independence Movement

It is a source of immense frustration to me that the grassroots of the independence movement have been completely left to their own devices since 2014, rather than being kept under some form of structured leadership or guidance by the pro-independence political parties. Naturally there are those who would not like this. There are those who see party-political involvement as a threat to movement autonomy, sure. Others imagine it would leave the SNP open to attack for every infraction committed by some over-enthusiastic bampot, sure.