Regular readers of the Random Public Journal will no doubt be aware of the personal crisis I have experienced in the aftermath of the last election. My desire to see the creation of a supermajority for independence in Holyrood was crushed. Once again the movement lapped up the honeyed promises of the SNP, and once again the SNP stopped talking about independence as soon as the election was over. This and the endless vitriol from gender critical activists online have driven me into a pit of despair.
Untenable Position
Whether readers are prepared to accept reality or not, the facts speak for themselves. The First Minister has misled the Scottish parliament, she has acted with other senior members of the SNP in a conspiracy involving the unholy trinity of the British establishment in Scotland — the crown, the British civil service, and the unionist media — in a potentially criminal project designed to imprison Alex Salmond. Irrespective of the dubious legality of this behaviour, the fact that she has colluded with the instruments of the British state...
What is the Scottish Republic?
Contrary to popular opinion, the Republic is not merely a form of government Scotland can choose to adopt after independence. As was the case in Ireland in 1916, the proclamation of the Republic is at once the reaffirmation of the sovereignty of the Scottish people, a declaration of our national independence, and the most powerful instrument by which we can come together to realise and secure an independent Scottish Republic.
Our Derailment
If the Scottish National Party succumbs to this crisis – as it may well do – then we are looking at independence being cast a considerable distance into the future. Either the SNP will have to rebuild and regain trust or – having untangled independence from this one party – we will have to start afresh from the beginning with a new party or parties and work ourselves back up to the level we are now at. During all this time the British state will be constantly at work against us.
Educating Cameron Archibald
Christopher McEleny’s response – ‘I do not need a lecture on Irish history from you’ – was, one supposes, the best possible reply to this level of stupidity. McEleny had commented that a century ago Ireland departed from the United Kingdom when Sinn Féin, after winning a landslide majority in the 1918 general election, formed An Chéad Dáil Éireann (the First Irish Parliament) in Dublin and declared Irish independence. Yes, this happened. This was how Ireland – like the United States of America in 1776 – asserted its freedom from British colonial domination.
Flying with the Crows
Fifty to a hundred guys – and a few girls – dressed mainly in black, hoods up and faces covered, swaggering in a column towards a specified location in any city sends a very clear message! And we all understand what that message is. We don’t all button up the back. Regardless of how Police Scotland treat Loyalists, it was right for the police to intercept this little army – and it wasn’t wrong of witnesses and folk on social media to think this was a repeat of the last Loyalist day out. This brigade, this battalion, looked like a duck and it sure as hell quacked like a duck.
Independence: What Next?
Our government said it would not tolerate a power grab, that it would not stand for Scotland being taken out of the European Union against the democratic will of the Scottish people. It has had mandate after mandate to move forward with independence. It had the support to resist the British state over Brexit. We watched as the United Kingdom staggered from one constitutional crisis to another – and in the end we got sweet feck all. Don’t shoot the messenger! Don’t discount what I’m saying just because it hurts your feelings. It hurts my feelings too.
Our Day Has Come
Irish people, beat down by austerity, sick of the homelessness and the housing crisis, have turned to Sinn Féin in numbers; the only party for a united Ireland – a Republic for all the children of Ireland. As the counting trundled on, one win after another put to bed forever the idea that Ireland cannot awaken from the nightmare of its history, a story imposed on us for centuries by British soldiers, their occupation, laws, and atrocities. At long last our day has come, and the wave – the ‘surge’ – of emotion that rushed through the Republican movement was equalled only by...