The dearth of working-class representation in Scotland these days is dire. It seems that everyone is from a middle-class background. However, a lot of people have migrated out of working-class backgrounds into middle-class ones and you hope that they still remember their roots.
The SNP in my youth was largely a working-class movement, with even the middle-class people at the top still from working-class roots. That is becoming rarer and rarer across all parties as private school/university candidates appear to take every slot.
The huge working-class vote in Scotland has dwindled, too, as folk are becoming more and more scunnered by a system that offers them little, and Labour, now a managerial, middle-class party in its own right, is no longer the answer to Scots’ prayers – if it ever was.
You put your finger right on the problem: the sense of local and community cohesion is gone; the understanding of local issues and points of view is gone; everything is now churned through a central machine to be spat out as pellets of disconnection with the lives of ordinary people. Everything and everyone around any form or level of government is a professional, managerial type that is the same wherever you are. They are interchangeable.
The call to bring back the burghs has been given short shrift be cause they are ‘royal’ burghs and be cause they tend to be rural, but that applies to huge swathes of Scotland, so the same problems of local communication, activism and connection have been lost here as well as in the big towns and cities. Problems are different for cities, but the schemes are like burghs in their own right and are a way to retain the local as against the national.
Scotland is a small country in some ways, but not in others, but it needs to get back to the local to connect once again with the people our parliament is meant to serve (I know, don’t laugh). Change is always with us, every generation, and it seems that every generation becomes disenchanted with change, the problem being that so much change seems to be for its own sake, becomes too rapid for people to keep up and ends up by tripping itself up and pleasing no one. I actually find it hard to believe that the Scotland I grew up in is the same country in which I now live.
Thatcher did not just change society, she did it in such a way that the working-class became alienated from its roots over a period of no more than ten years or so. Every ill that has beset us stems back to her time – hers and Blair’s, because he was in the same mould, but from a Labour perspective. Thatcher was lower middle-class, Blair middle-class. Neither knew anything about the lives and aspirations of ordinary people and their ideologies became all, destroying a post war consensus that was built on the strongest of ties.
I’m not talking about social change which was necessary, but the deliberate and totally unnecessary switching of the nation’s accumulated wealth away from working people into the hands of speculators in order to pretend that the UK was not a sinking entity that was going to disintegrate eventually. The transition from world power to ‘has been’ could have managed sensitively and compassionately, but it was not, and the working-class lost everything, even its innate pride in its ability to endure and keep smiling.
The ‘woke’ of today – almost exclusively middle-class – are the inheritors of the politics of illusion, delusion, of puddle-deep sincerity for causes that they can actually do sweet Fanny Adams about, or actually want to do anything about, but feel that they must virtue-signal, like sheep in wolves’ clothing, because, in reality, they care nothing for anyone or anything apart from themselves and their own shallow lives. Their very existence is pure performance, while poor people struggle in front of them.
You go for it, Leanne. You encourage your people to fight back against this pernicious non-life that we are all being forced to live against the backdrop of utter bile water. We need another working-class revolution and a woman’s revolution in this benighted country of ours.
The Old Labour Party of the 40s, 50s and 60s are long gone. What happened to them? They are no longer made up of ordinary working people, no longer do they work their way up from the factory floor, the pits, the shipyards or the steelwork, through the Union, the traditional way to progress into politics and representing their communities. They have become Professional Politicians, been to University, then become researchers or political assistants or been in one of the professions. Most have lost touch with ordinary working people, if they ever knew them at all. No social conscience, no integrity and no understanding of the lives of the people they are supposed to represent.
Our Alfred The Great is THE man for the job . Nae doot aboot it . For all the reasons Iain gives + the fact of his unbreakable commitment to Independence and clarity of thought on how to achieve it : none of this pusillanimous pandering to Brit State sanction nor Nu SNP ” can we have a S30 please , Sir ” wibble-wobble from this man . He knows , as we do , the Independence OF Scotland will only be realised IN Scotland .
It won’t be cakes that get burned ; it will be the Treaty Of Union .
Another advantage of choosing Alf is that he can speak and write in Scots, which would probably annoy our colonial masters, should he chose to do so. That would prove beyond doubt that someone can speak and write intelligently and coherently in a language other than the one they have foisted on us over the last 150 years or so! (1872 Scottish Education Act – ‘All Education in Scotland shall take place in English.’)
I am extremely pleased that Alf has accepted nomination as Co-chair of the Liberation Scotland Committee. We are off to a terrific start and it will encourage others to apply for membership of the Committee.
The work to be undertaken by the Committee will be new to many but will help shape the future for our nation and for our children. The contribution they are going to make will be something that our children can speak of with pride.
Thanks for nominating Alf , Iain, and Alf thanks for accepting Iain’s nomination, I could not imagine anyone being more tailored to the position , his ongoing multiple exposures of the colonial situation which we have suffered is awakening many more people to how USELESS and INEFFECTUAL our politicians have been for 300+years, thanks also to Sara and the SALVO,Liberation.Scot,SSRG teams for EXPOSING the lies and theft of our resources and freedoms by a duplicitous rancorous neighbour
Utterly sickening . I cannot believe that Scots , normally conservative with a small ‘c’ , are going to buy into this science denying , human rights denying nonsense.
Roll on elections so that the voice of Scotland can be heard loud and clear.
I may be accused of catastrophising – so be it. As a woman who refuses to accept that human beings can change sex & who fervently believes that men, regardless of their assumed gender, whether legally acquired or not, need to be kept out of women’s spaces, I am afraid of my government.
I’m not an independence supporter, though I support the principle of self-determination. I’m not a Scot. I started readings Wings because I’m interested in the trans issue. I stayed because I became more interested in Scottish politics broadly. Both my adult children live in the Highlands and I visit the country regularly. For the first time, I am inspired to comment. As a student of international politics and history, this law fills me with dread. This is not about hate, it is about the silencing of non-complaint women and non-compliant gay men. More generally, it is about the silencing of opponents of government policy, the silencing of political opponents, through the threat of imprisonment. In its first iteration, the proposed law encouraged radicalized children to inform on their parents, who would then face sanction by the state. Who else in history has done this in the interest of advancing their political agenda? As Neale says, this is happening in Scotland, the cradle of the Enlightenment. We all have an interest in seeing this law repealed, either through the ballot box, or if necessary a campaign of mass dissent. I wish you well.
Alison
I may be accused of catastrophising – so be it. As a man who refuses to accept that human beings can change sex & who also believes that men, regardless of their assumed gender, whether legally acquired or not, need to be kept out of women’s spaces, I am NOT fraid of my government but I stand alongside my female warriors to protect women’s spaces and strive to ensure their rights continue to be protected.
Neale the Scottish World will enter a very dark place for everyone not just women or LGB. They will use the Hate Crime to take out political opponents especially the successful ones, standby Stu. Previous example being the use of #MeToo to take out MSPs and former First Ministers. The biggest loser will be Police Scotland. An order of magnitude greater than the miners strike. I doubt they will ever recover from this Hate Crime Leglisation. An Interim Interdict followed by Judicial Review is needed. Again Lawfare needed against our own Scottish Government. An even darker black hole place awaits.
This whole culture war can be summed up by Brad Pitts monologue in the iconic film Fight Club.
“We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives.
We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
Personally I blame the smacking ban and free social science degrees at university.
Under this new legislation, introduced to parliament by the current First Minister when he was justice secretary, that social world and activism of the 1980s is likely to be considered criminal. The legislation’s exclusion of sex as a protected characteristics means women do not exist as a sex class for the purposes of the act.
Which is exactly the purpose of the act. I can call a woman a ‘bitch’ and nothing will happen but if I call India Willoughby a man (which he is) I could get a chap on the door by the police, spend a night in the cells, have all my devices taken from me, doxxed by activists, and if I didn’t work for myself I may be sacked and then spend months waiting for a trial which stands a chance of being thrown out by the judge.
But the process is the punishment. That’s the point of this. It’s to create a chilling effect so that Trans activists in particular (but other activists will use this to silence people) will silence and attack opponents. I imagine on the 1st of April J.K Rowling will be reported to the police by some blue-haired lunatic activist with links to the Greens/SNP. I hope they do as she’s got the money to push this in the courts and I note several KC’s are up for taking on cases to challenge this in the courts.
And there’s no outrage or challenge when columnists in supposedly independence-supporting newspapers or SNP MPs hurl homophobic slurs in my direction. Those voices, so imbued in arrogance and self-importance, betray their ignorance of moral philosophy, ethical theory and the need for precise language in law.
I’m sure Neale knows this but for anyone who doesn’t, the Trans movement and so-called ‘progressives’ contain an extraordinary amount of homophobes and self-hating homosexuals. The Trans movement is built around transing away the gay & I find it repulsive that gay men like Patrick Harvie support a movement that is trying to make people like him a thing of the past but then again, he’s sold out so often that this really isn’t a shock.
Section 28 was a walk in the park in comparison to Yousaf’s authoritarian silencing of women and LGB people.
Boom!
This can be compared to what Section 28 wanted to do in creating a chilling effect to demonise and outlaw homosexuality & this is looking to outlaw and demonise homosexuals fighting for hard fought rights as part of its purpose. It’s also designed to create an open season on abuse of women speaking out about safeguarding, and yet again this is going to possibly weaken boundaries so if say, you speak out about men in women’s toilets or changing rooms then you’ll almost certainly now be reported as of 1/4/24. As for if you point out that ‘Trans women can be lesbians’ is in fact, the very pinnacle of rape culture and the patriarchy , then you’ll be in the cells in a day or two.
In my reading this act is in conflict with Articles 1, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14 and 17 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to which the UK State is a signatory and where in Scotland, civil and political rights are protected by the Human Rights Act 1998 and the related provisions that underpin the Scotland Act 1998.
I’ve read that in court any case is going to crumble when tested against ECHR legislation, and it’s also worth noting that the Tories who despise the ECHR haven’t brought in anything as bad as this and they’ve brought in some appalling acts which curb civil rights.
My worry is that rights lost are rarely returned. If this law collapses then the damage will be done.
The bar for prosecution is extremely low. No corroboration is required and the definition of “harassment” is ill-described and includes a wholly subjective test of “causing the person alarm or distress”. Such nebulous scope invites vexatious and malicious complaints, prosecutions, convictions and potential incarceration.
I’m aware of several threats from activists of them making clear that come the 1st Aprils they’ll be reporting people even though there’s no retroactive part of this law and the law itself is so badly drafted that they’ll be lucky to get a prosecution. Again, that’s not the point, the process is the punishment. They want you in the cells, or sacked, or spend months with declining mental health because these people are sadists.
And that’s probably enough for me to get nicked if I repeat it in April.
I have looked at the details of ‘hate crime’ laws in both Ireland and Canada and they too have vague and undefined notions of what ‘hate’ is, leaving it to the accuser to define the crime. I believe this vagueness and lack of definition of hate is deliberate, not a mistake, not poorly drafted law. Why? In order to shift the balance of power to the state. The prime reason for ‘hate crime’ laws is specifically to prevent any legitimate criticism of transgenderism which is why they have deliberately omitted sex as a category falling under protected characteristics. Transgenderism is a divisive, wedge issue and is a useful divide and conquer tactic for governments to keep a population cowed, silent and in fear of making any public criticism. The chilling effect is baked into the hate crime laws and vastly increases the power of the government over its population.
Concerning to think that post the 1st April not only would many of the comments posted on this thread alone be sufficient to get some poster reported at their convenient Glasgow sex shop, but may lead to the site which allows them to be posted being suspended or closed down.
Does anyone doubt that “blood & soil” or immigrant comments aren’t going to be reported as being the responsibility of the site owner.
Ruby: all the political parties, except, perhaps, the Tories, have just gone along with this. They are utterly spineless, at best, malevolent, at worst. None of these men, old-style transsexual or not, are safe around women and children. They ALL have paraphilias and fetishes. ALL of them. There are no real ‘trans’. They were just the propaganda wing of a movement that is so malevolent that it will eventually eat itself.
Neale, as a gay man, is in no better position than females, but too many gays and too many females are batting for the other side in this fight. The gay men who support this ordure are misogynists. The females? Gullible idiots who wouldn’t understand that they are destroying themselves along with other females. They are despicable.
I think something is going to give if this stuff passes into the law of Scotland. It is going to utterly destroy the SNP at long last – richly deserved – but, as you say, ALBA and every other party has avoided this fight. The only answer is the Party of Women. Leave all the others, women of Scotland, and get behind this one because most men will not fight for us and our rights.
I am obviously very concerned for all what Mr Hanvey writes above, but I must admit I am even more concerned about what it might be that this toxic legislation is trying to hide from us and what it will be really deployed for. I do not believe it is merely to protect trans. There is an ulterior motive to this.
Problem, reaction, solution
It stands to the obvious Sturgeon’s useless government (and that of the even more useless Yousaf) was creating a problem that was not there in the first place. Women were not being viciously attacked by fake trans goons before she started leading the SNP nor deliberately silenced or even forced out of their jobs simply for defending their rights. This does not belong in a democracy nor in the 21st century. This is akin to what women experienced in the 17 and 18th century. It is in your face. It is deliberate and it is obvious it is seeking to provoke a strong reaction from the public. As Mr Hanvey says, this legislation purposely breaches the Equality Act because it is leaving behind some protected characteristics like sex and age. Yet, the useless lord advocate has not a problem with it nor, of course, the crown agent of the day or Alistair Jack. How convenient.
When you read through the messages in social media on the trans issue, some of the things you see would not be out of place in a dystopian sci fiction movie. The attempts to normalise the sickening promotion of castration of children and mutilation of their wee bodies, or the disturbing images of disgusting male perverts wanking themselves in the females’ toilet or taking selfies just to infuriate women, seem deliberately trying to provoke a strong reaction from women, from parents and grandparents of girls and from boyfriends and husbands.
In this day and age, it is unbelievable that somebody could be so stupid and so ignorant as to even think for a second that allowing a male into the female category is ending women’s sports. Yet, we have committee after committee, like turkeys voting for Christmas, allowing this to happen.
This shit is targeting everybody and their dog. And they are ensuring they are targeting everybody and their dog.
The “solution” to the “reaction” is obvious: a fascist piece of legislation which would be the envy of dictators like Franco or Mussolini. The Hate crime legislation may be called hate crime, but it is a piece of legislation whose evident objective is to repress the population and kill dissent.
But dissent to what? is my question. Any dissent? I do not bite that it will only be used to protect trans. I bet the establishment does not give a shit about them.
We have seen from the way Mr Salmond was targeted by the establishment how anybody can be tarnished with a fabricated sex crime. Now the establishment does not even need that. The mere allegation that you have committed a crime of hate, even if it is calling a name to your pet fish, is enough. This tells me that the establishment types are preparing themselves to a situation where they anticipate having to quashing dissent in industrial scale. It is interesting this thing is going to be deployed in Scotland and not England, suggesting this will be used to quash support for independence. Goodness knows what the British establishment is planning for after the next GE.
There is something about all this that does not smell right. Okay, everything about this idiotic law or how it was forced through holyrood or the way the trans goons managed to get control of every public service and government structure, even the courts, smells off. But this putrid law in particular, the justification for it and what it will be used for, smells rotten. Smells at fabrication. Smells fake.
There are quite a few strange cogs placing themselves in odd parts of the machine right now, and one wonders what they are seeking and who is controlling them. Owen Jones, for instance. What on earth is a high profile individual like him doing in a dump like the National with close to no readership elbowing each other with the WGD? This is odd. How can the National afford to pay this man? If the National is not paying him for the “interviews” and articles he writes, who is paying him? And if he does it altruistically without being paid, where does his sudden interest for writing on a Scottish paper, and one which alleges to be pro-independence, when he is diametrically opposed to independence, come from?
Is he another successor of Dafoe, another propagandist sent arrogantly by the English crown to lecture and patronise the Scots on what we have to think, believe and say and how? This is bizarre on the extreme.
And the large smile of Yousaf when interviewed by this man is even more bizarre.
This smacks at “change of guard”.
Some of the pictures in social media show men dressed as women which go purposely to disrupt women’s rights protests. But when you look at some of those types, you do not see a trans trying to look even remotely feminine. You see a very masculine, very tall and large men that is standing on a posture that resembles a western cowboy that is about to unload both barrels, a soldier or special forces. Those men are holding the handbag like a soldier would hold a machine gun and wear the high heels with the same style and pose you would imagine an elephant to adopt when wearing stilettos. It is very obvious they are there to disrupt and it is very obvious they do not believe for even a second the notion that they are “women”. So who are they disrupting women’s rights protests on behalf of and why?
I am terrified to find out what the “solution” this putrid bill is really trying to deliver is and on behalf of whom/what.
Since 19 September 2014 I no longer believe democracy exists in the UK. Ever since, I have believed elections are a charade where the result has been already decided before hand, candidates manipulated to ensure the result obtained is what the establishment had planned for and then propaganda is distributed on industrial scale through different channels, including the reports of some professors and “experts” to prepare the public for the “official” result to avoid a furious backlash.
But I must admit I am disconcerted by this. Disconcerted and scared, to be frank. The ganging up of the entire political class to force this on the population of Scotland is not only disgusting in the extreme, but it is not normal in a democracy or even a pretend democracy like Scotland is.
What this legislation has proven beyond any reasonable doubt is that no-one, no-one sitting in Holyrood is working for Scotland. They are working against. Because if they did, they would not dare force this disgusting piece of legislation on the people of Scotland. Shame on them all. I hope this legislation they undemocratically forced on us comes back to bite them really hard on their backsides.
Ellie says:
19 March, 2024 at 3:57 pm
The HCB is essentially coercion and compelled speech being forced upon every one of us
Sounds exactly like Havel’s Greengrocer
The manager of a fruit-and-vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the world, unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? Is he genuinely enthusiastic about the idea of unity among the workers of the world? Is his enthusiasm so great that he feels an irrepressible impulse to acquaint the public with his ideals? Has he really given more than a moment’s thought to how such a unification might occur and what it would mean?
I think it can safely be assumed that the overwhelming majority of shopkeepers never think about the slogans they put in their windows, nor do they use them to express their real opinions. That poster was delivered to our greengrocer from the enterprise headquarters along with the onions and carrots. He put them all into the window simply because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, and because that is the way it has to be. If he were to refuse, there could be trouble. He could be reproached for not having the proper decoration in his window; someone might even accuse him of disloyalty. He does it because these things must be done if one is to get along in life. It is one of the thousands of details that guarantee him a relatively tranquil life “in harmony with society,” as they say.
Obviously the greengrocer is indifferent to the semantic content of the slogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. This, of course, does not mean that his action has no motive or significance at all, or that the slogan communicates nothing to anyone. The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: “I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.” This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer’s superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan’s real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer’s existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?
Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;’ he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, “What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?” Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.
Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves. It is a very pragmatic but, at the same time, an apparently dignified way of legitimizing what is above, below, and on either side. It is directed toward people and toward God. It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo. It is an excuse that everyone can use, from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interest in staying in power can be cloaked in phrases about service to the working class. The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.
The smaller a dictatorship and the less stratified by modernization the society under it, the more directly the will of the dictator can be exercised- In other words, the dictator can employ more or less naked discipline, avoiding the complex processes of relating to the world and of self justification which ideology involves. But the more complex the mechanisms of power become, the larger and more stratified the society they embrace, and the longer they have operated historically, the more individuals must be connected to them from outside, and the greater the importance attached to the ideological excuse. It acts as a kind of bridge between the regime and the people, across which the regime approaches the people and the people approach the regime. This explains why ideology plays such an important role in the post-totalitarian system: that complex machinery of units, hierarchies, transmission belts, and indirect instruments of manipulation which ensure in countless ways the integrity of the regime, leaving nothing to chance, would be quite simply unthinkable without ideology acting as its all-embracing excuse and as the excuse for each of its parts.
The problem is that we don’t like in a totalitarian state and the Scottish devolved administration doesn’t have the funds to operate one. The Scottish police doesn’t have the resources to deal with low-level crime never mind implementing the HCB to the point it can be effective like the above.
As others have said, this will get repealed like the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act as it is unworkable.
So, we’re back to the good old days of blasphemy laws. Anyone care for an Enlightenment?
Thanks Neale for this eye opening article, so no corroboration is needed which means anyone can claim a hate crime has been committed against them just on their word alone.
I’m hoping this madness is repealed when it turns out that the Keystone Cops aka Police Scotland, which is already down to bare bones in numbers and funds, fails miserably to fully enforce the Hate Crime laws.
In that instance I foresee Police Scotland being compelled to arrest the more prominent folk in Scottish society who oppose the HC laws the kind of folk like you and the Rev who inform folk of what’s actually going on in this Mad Alice in Wonderland that is Scotland today under this SNP government, the Rabbit Hole goes much deeper.
Here the Keystone Cops aka Police Scotland virtually admits that it doesn’t have the resources to fulfill the unpopular legislation that are the Hate Crime Laws.
“POLICE Scotland has revealed its concerns that the new Hate Crime Bill will create additional pressures and cited plans to tackle abuse within the force.
The force has also clarified that actors and comedians will not be targeted under new hate crime laws.
The Hate Crime Bill will come into force on April 1, expanding existing legislation to cover comments made in private settings without the intention to offend – prompting criticism from author JK Rowling, as well as lawyers both sides of the Border.
Police Scotland’s chief financial officer James Gray revealed that no budget provision had been allocated for “new legislation” at a committee meeting of the Scottish Police Authority.”
https://archive.is/tBcTN#selection-1727.3-1755.187
I follow this site regularly, and am ever increasingly concerned by what continues to be brought to light by the excellent work of the operator of same.
I cannot believe that we have stood by, and permitted our country to descend into the increasingly dangerous and illiberal society I see before me today. I believeve that all of this has been rendered possible by the slavish adherence by many of my fellow Scots to the cult of N Sturgeon and her gauleiters.No one likes to admit that they’ve been conned, but many have, and unless something radical happens soon, we really are in the shit.
I know it’s unthinkable for the majority, and I also know it will never happen, but I would reluctantly endure a Conservative administration in Scotland, (albeit temporary)as I think.it may be the only hope there is of returning the country and its people to some sort of equilibrium.
I shall now return to the Anderson shelter, and don my tin helmet.
“Waken up, or be ready to take your places as second-class citizens in your own country”
The Scottish people have been second-class citizens in their own country since 1706. There is no better proof of this that having the political party in power in Scotland, elected to end the union, proactively denying democracy and abusing the pro-independence votes to do precisely the opposite. All while they engage in pursuing aberrant pet causes and harshly punish the people of Scotland with toxic policies, knowing they are both toxic an unpopular.
It seems that being Scots is the mere reason why the people of Scotland is being punished.
Sturgeon had a habit for throwing the males of her team under the bus of the day to fabricate distraction and save her corrupt arse. Before she dropped the bombshell and run like the political coward she is, she ensured Yousaf would not last as FM.
Yousaf is the man who, as Justice secretary, oversaw this Hate law aberration. While the law was ultimately Sturgeon’s responsibility, he was stupid enough to put his name to it.
And because of his rigged leadership election, he is now in the unenviable position of having to implement his own toxicity law too and endure the backlash which surely will come. In other words, he cannot escape the accountability for this toxic legislation in two fronts.
Was this by design? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Whoever is moving the strings of the SNP is ensuring they crush and burn at the upcoming GE. This is just another nail to the political coffin of the SNP and Yousaf.
The bill goes live on the 1st of April, giving it just enough months before the upcoming GE to cause untold damage and totally finish Yousaf and the SNP off politically. By design? You bet.
Just as it is likely that it has been by design that the leaker was never found (goodness, that must have been some miracle the police had to pull off to not find out the culprit), and that operation branchform appears to have been sedated and kept sleeping. I bet it will suddenly wake up as soon as they announce the date for the GE.
There are so, so many things that the establishment appears to be manipulating to ensure Scotland does not send another anti-union majority to Westmimnster that one wanders how high real support for independence among Scots actually is.
Having an infiltrated SNP bent on hiding it by pissing on democracy for the best part of 10 years to deny the people of Scotland its own democratic mandates, is a give away.
stuart mctavish @ 3:21 am
“But, what with it being called Hate Crime and Public Order Scotland Act 2021 , I’d imagine that if Police Scotland received a single complaint on April 1st, let alone 5 million or so, about the (interpretation of) UKSC decision on a Scottish independence referendum constituting a (warmongering) crime, of (attempted) denial of democracy, that was clearly aggravated by prejudice against Scots, and overt racism v same, they’d be obliged to take it very seriously indeed.”
Yes indeed, racial oppression of an entire people/nation is “a consubstantial part” and parcel of everyday life in a colonial society.
According to Aime Cesaire “colonization is based on psychology” which leads to denial of its very basis, which is racism. And so we end up with “psychoanalysis Embellished with existentialism – where the most absurd prejudices are explained and justified” and where the colonialist “has grafted modern abuse onto ancient injustice, hateful racism onto old inequality”.
For the colonized, “hateful racism” is therefore a constant part of life for an entire people, albeit made largely unconscious, so even the (culturally assimilated) legislators and courts cannot see it, and don’t want to see it (hence denial). But yes, an entire colonized people are subject to “hateful racism” every day of their wretched lives. Which helps explain why any independence movement depends on the solidarity of the oppressed ethnic group, and where independence is decolonization, and liberation from (racial) oppression.
Sae lang as the National party elites dinnae ken whit independence is aboot, thay’ll shurely no be able tae fund the leeberation door tae gang oot.
OK, so how do we fight this thing? Flood them with vexatious reports? A campaign of mass dissent/civil disobedience?? Ultimately, I think this one will need to be fought by the big guns such as JK Rowling, but I’m so worried for all the ordinary people with jobs, reputations and families to care for. Could some sort of legal defense fund be established to help out with the costs this monstrosity will dump on the people forced to fight to clear their name??? I’m so scared, but I want to fight. We must fight.
It’s heartening to read the comments on here, it gives me hope that this appalling piece of legislation could be taken down. To be honest I didn’t think it would ever get enforced.
I have been hoping to read of actions, proposals, campaigns to get it repealed, but in truth, like the GRRB, perhaps it’s downfall will be publicity. Having the light shone on the absurdity of the GRRB made millions aware of the reality of the horseshit that would have been implemented upon them, and I think forced the UK gov to act. The SNP got away with it, they played the Undemocratic Meddling UK card and escaped being run out of town. For now.
That publicity could come any time, from day one, and from anywhere. I think a campaign to jail JKR would alert many people to the severity of the issue and turn them against the law and those who would enforce it, but anyone in the public eye getting lifted for stating scientific fact or even an opinion, or the first time someone gets charged for voicing an opinion in a private conversation, could very well do the same.
The Fringe and the election later this year could be absolute carnage! Though its certain that green and SNP supporters/activists will report gender critical opponents for hate crimes, it becomes much more interesting when it’s those who this bill was designed to defend are reported! Remember Nicola and Humza both saying things publicly recently that would constitute hate speech? Then we’ll either see the law applied selectively very publicly, or it’ll get quietly dropped.
I’m intrigued by the idea up-thread that there’s another motive here, the suppression of dissent. I can’t disagree, but it worries me that even if that wasn’t the intention, there’s nothing in the bill to prevent it being used for that in the future. Just look at extremism laws at WM! How long before support for Scottish or Welsh independence is considered anti-british extremism and made a jailable offence?
Individually we have too much to lose to stand up for this, as with cancel culture this law could remove your livelihood, employability, reputation (the next one in the chamber could take your family away too!) for speaking your mind. That fear of personal consequences controls us. That fear costs us our voices. I hope that when we use those voices together the consequences aren’t for us using them, but for those who’d ignore them.
The entire concept of “hate speech” is perverted at best, ruthlessly cynical at worst. There is literally no situation where laws against it are needed to protect anyone since it is an absolute human right to hate anyone you want. It’s only a problem when it turns to violence, discrimination or defamation, and there are ample laws existing to deal with that. In every instance, these laws are leftist driven for the purpose of control and for no other purpose whatsoever. I have said this again and again, and I’m not going to stop saying it — the left is poison. It’s killing Scottish independence, and it’s killing those who identify with labour and working-class history. To every individual who might read this, you have simply got to break with socialism before socialism breaks you. It’s an addiction, and the only way to stop is cold turkey.
“Can I cross over the border to England, let the Hate Monster engulf me, post something considering a hate crime and be charged when I re-enter Scotland?”
Short answer: yes. You don’t even need to re-enter Scotland, they’ll come and get you.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”
Nietzsche
I guess this means there won’t b
I’m amazed that someone in the government or police didn’t realise it’d be mocked. It’s 2024, we live in the age of the internet and people were going to do this but they still put out materials ripe for pisstaking.
Though sadly this is law in a fortnights time. It’s going to happen even though the overall bulk of the national, and even international, reaction is overwhelmingly negative. Even some of the most ‘progressive’ types are querying why this is needed, not to mention the fact it excludes misogyny is providing a massive red flag to people that this isn’t in fact a law to deal with hate crime, but a law to weaponise hate against women speaking out in support of reality.
That hasn’t stopped SNP & Green politicians, as well as those who blindly support the SNP, coming out supporting this with the incredibly Tory line ‘If you’ve nothing to worry about, you’ll be fine’ which is as chilling a line as I’d expect from people who I’m completely sure will be leaping to report people for the slightest thing come the 1st of April.
Apart from those who’ll be hit with reports, I feel sorry for the police and the courts who have to deal with this & try to interpret this mess of a law. It’ll end up being badly interpreted, especially from those police who are also TRA’s which raises the point that how does this law stop activists in any walk of life making endless vexatious complaints that may not end up in a courtroom, but wrecks someone’s life which is the point of this. The process is the punishment.
And again, I sit here thinking that a decade ago we were talking about creating a new Golden Age for Scotland and now we’re fighting to stop activists send people to prison for calling men, men.
Dan wrote:
“All that cash spaffed away on crap like Deposit Return Scheme could have gone to much better environment improving initiatives.”
The DRS was/is nothing more than an blatant attempt by a foreign industry insider to (Slater) hive off a potentially profitable part of the waste recycling industry, for the benefit of her cronies. – It’s nothing remotely like the old ‘ginger bottle’ or ‘milk bottle’ schemes or anything they might have in Europe. – And it’s not for the public (or environmental) good.
Reduced to its essence it means forcing the public to sort potentially valuable waste for very large privately-owned companies, from which they will make vast profits; it’s as blatantly corrupt and dishonest a scam as can be! Meanwhile, while her cronies grow fat; the public purse will be left to deal with that which is less easy to monetise.
Like Stoker (20th March at 7:58pm)’I’ve absolutely no faith in any “Scottish” complaints system. They are indeed all as corrupt as Sturgeon’s Nasty Party.’ …Your formal complaints will by ‘wrung through’ the sham of a ‘model complaints procedure’ by SEPA. Ranks will be closed, the law will be ignored – lies will be put forth and ultimately SW and SEPA will close ranks to bury the issue.
Your ‘final recourse’ will be to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman; the SPSO is supposedly the final stage for complaints about public service organisations in Scotland. In practice, they are there simply to ‘rubber stamp’ malpractice on the part of public service organisations and defeat the ends of justice by making any court action (even if the money can be found to support it) pointless.
The courts – even if the law is broken and the evidence is strong – will default to blindly upholding Ombudman’s decisions
“Incompetence or deceit seems to be the norm in far too many other aspects of Scotland.”
These things are the norm!
Nobody in public service is interested in truth or justice… the system is rotten to the core; and that applies throughout these septic isles and beyond. – Actually; this level of dishonesty and corruption has been the norm for generations; it’s simply less-well hidden these days.
I don’t always agree with Brendan O’Neill ( most of the time I do ) but this is an absolutely brilliant dissection of the recent Irish Referenda and evisceration of the * Woke * elite that brought it about – getting their baws kicked in the process
Everything he says here about the Irish * Progressive * Socio/political mindset and it’s calamitous effects is mirrored exactly in the Green/snP .
What’s happening in Ireland should be taken as a cautionary example of how disavowing your past , being shamed by your History , only ever seeing the negatives – seeking them out , is essentially , attacking peoples’ sense of who they are , what gives them meaning , kinship with their predecessors , and will only be tolerated for so long and up to a certain point .
Rather than taking heed of the Irish Ref results , the GREEN/snP menagerie are hell-bent on continuing on the same road to ruin .
I’m sure they’ll get there .
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/03/17/ireland-and-the-terrible-truth-about-wokeness/
Robert Hughes @ 10:44 pm
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/03/17/ireland-and-the-terrible-truth-about-wokeness/
An excellent synopsis, demonstrating how ideologically distant today’s pampered and privileged neoliberal political elites are from colonially damaged yet still breathing national culture, the latter the only bulwark defending against oppressive forms of Cultural Imperialism such as wokery, which seeks to obliterate national cultures and hence undermine nations and weaken national sovereignty. And which reveals the true purpose of the hate crime and other woke legislation.
Authoritarian bad legislation together with a politically sectarian and increasingly selectively abusive Police Scotland and prosecution service is and will continue to be a cause of hate.
People, ordinary people have no faith, no trust in the police. That is a bad situation for any society.
Selective arrests and oursuance of political opponents, the non prosecution of politicos commuting crimes whilst others are pursued, the increasing hostility to ordinary protestor, the policy decisions not to address big commercial crimes are now all too clear to see.
It is not to understate things a cause of dissonance, a cause of hate even. People don’t just dislike sectarian apartheid police forces but can actually hate them.
The RUC of old, the old apartheid police service of South Africa, all now look like what Police Scotland has become.
Robert Hughes, Alf Baird
An interesting read, though a little too focused on the present. Instead they author should be putting Liberalism in the dock. Wokeness is just an intolerant version of a process that’s being going on since the Enlightenment, where elites, not the church or the monarchy, get to decide what’s best for everybody. The whole idea of “improvement” is what brought us The Clearances.
Stuart Mackay
Fair point/s .
Not sure if Wokeness is * just * an ” intolerant version …….. ” etc
I mean , it definitely IS a modern version of ( imagined ) Elite superiority , the same vinegary wine in a fancier bottle . It something else altogether too .
Never before in History has a group of people tried to promulgate – by * force * & judicial imposition – the idea that humans can change sex ; that children – some of pre-school age – can * know * their ….zzzzzz ” gender identity ” and should be * affirmed * in this fantasy by life-altering , irreversible physical surgery , leading to – among other unpleasant conditions – permanent sterility .
Even by historical standards , that’s taking the human propensity for delusional self-harm to unprecedented levels .
The other aspects of the * Woke * agenda/mentality may be puerile , SELF-serving garbage – they are – but this State Endorsed/Promoted Cult of Mutilation is by far the most dangerous , seriously unhinged part of the entire * Project *
Whether intentional or not, the result of HCB will be silencing political dissent as per the analogy of Havel’s Greengrocer.
I can’t help but feel another unintended consequence of this legislation is that it will be abused by those it is trying to protect.
To use an example, say a landlord is trying to evict a Trans individual due to anti-social behaviour which is perfectly acceptable under the leasing agreement. That Trans person could report the landlord to the police as a hate crime by arguing the landlord is trying to evict them due to being Trans rather than due to breaching the letting agreement.
The eviction would probably go ahead because it isn’t a hate crime but like politics, the word will get around and there will be the fear amongst landlords of being reported to the HCB and they will be walking on egg-shells with Trans tenants for fear of being involved with the law.
I am using Trans people as an example but this equally applies to all protected characteristics.
That may sound absurd but remember the Rev’s case against Kezia Dugdale. The rev was found both guilty and non guilty because Dugdale perceived his comments as homophobic even under the law it wasn’t.
It also occurred to me that this legislation could also be abused in other ways.
Say I had an ongoing feud with a neighbour. What would stop me from putting on eyeliner and polish on my nails then phoning the police and reporting a hate crime accusing the neighbour of Transphobia?
With this TRA ideology, gender is not linked to biological sex but identity. I know all the focus has been on guys in dresses but under this ideology, any individual can identity as the opposite sex even if they are don’t have any for of surgery or change their outward appearance of the sex they identify with.
Whether that will work in practice with the HCB legislation remains to be seen but ultimately if say a man identifies as a woman then under this flawed law, they will be treated as a woman and any crime against them has to be investigated?
It could be used as a way to protest against this legislation and is absurd but if you are dealing with such absurd legislation, is this the only way to oppose it by treating it as such?
Alf asked how are we going to reject it. Democratically it is basically impossible to reject it, the hate crime bill passed with cross party support.
Culturally we can reject it, though, by talking about it and mocking it -i don’t think the hate crime bill is covered in the hate crime bill. Expect to see the fringe awash with acts goading it and the Muppets who wrote and passed it.
If it’s seen widely as a massive joke, where we all acknowledge that the police and government want to control our thoughts, it loses its assumed credibility. The media ought to join in, the snp are the badguys to them too, and this has to be the easiest black eye to give them in an election year.
If people actually make a concerted effort to directly oppose it too, petitions and contacting any and all elected members, surely at some point the penny will drop.
If it doesn’t, I can only hope that once the police are overwhelmed with spurious and vexatious reports (probably from a tiny number of people), are seen to be investigating them selectively (as directed by government) or pursue a high-profile case that highlights the idiocy of the law, the hate crime law will show itself as a millstone round Police Scotland’s neck and a massive target on their back. The pressure to drop it will, I think sooner or later, come from the police force itself. Police Scotland won’t want the optics of arresting a comedian at the worlds largest arts festival, or lifting an electoral candidate in a national election, but maybe that’s what we all need to show the hate crime bill for what it is, increase public awareness of it, and force Holyrood to bin it.
Rab Clark @ 9:27 am
https://www.offtopicscotland.com/post/its-all-greek-to-me
Awfu braw an vailuable speirins thair, an nae bather tae unnerstaund aince ye ken a wee bittie o yer ain langage. Tho oor Scottis schuils an cooncil heid bummers an Government Meenisters shoud aw be black affrontit thay dinnae lairn Scots bairns thair ain braw langage, oor human richt tae; thay aye anely hiv Englis garred doon Scots bairns thrapples tae mak thaim inta wee Anglophones an gie thaim the blaflum thair aw ‘British’ an no Scots at aw. Whit we ken as ‘Linguistic Imperialism’. Tak awa a fowk’s langage, ye tak awa thair identity, imperial job duin!
Isolationism, North Korea Style:
It is a well-established principle in Scots law that anything published on the internet, which can be read in Scotland, is deemed to be published in Scotland. The act of publication is not deemed to be the person actually publishing the item, let us say in Tahiti. The act of publication is deemed to be the reader opening the item on their device in Scotland.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/03/scotlands-hate-speech-act-and-abuse-of-process/
Except for viewers in Scotland is on a whole new level. Looking forward to the Scottish Government building Hadrian’s firewall.
The Hate Crime Act featured heavily at FMQ today. Was the intervention by SNP MSP McKee sitting near Kate Forbes the distant rumble of a SNP leadership campaign.? It looked liked it to me. With the exception of Fergus Ewing strong criticism from the SNP backbenches is rare. Anyway I am thinking about starting a book for the first public complaint of the HCA. Favourite at odds on of 1 to 20 J K Rowling, 2nd Favourite at 9 to 4 Rev Stu Campbell and finally at 5 to 1 any white working class male between the ages of 18 and 30.
Good literary reference there; Schwejk (I can’t do all those accents) survives in a culture of insane rules and vicious punishments because he uses his wits to subvert them to his own advantage, by knowing the rules better than his superiors. Thus he survives. Likewise a lesson for today – maybe do not fight the woke – embrace it and tailor it to your own needs.
– e.g. everyone should declare themselves “trans” and – get your accusations in first; accuse your accusers of what they will accuse you of. On April 1 I would like to see a mass reporting, at least 1 million complaints of hate crimes from half the entire Scottish populace against the other half, and vice versa. Stodge it up, destroy the system with its own tools; think like a judokan.
According to my cousin at a college, some of the students changed their gender on a day to day basis – imagine how annoying that would be, even just the IT guys having to change your profile every day; odds on you will get a misgendering sooner or later, then you can get your boss fired, or a low 6 figure compo claim. Or you can work hard, like a sad sack cubicle mole, forever, like a “schmuck”.
Also, anyone going for a job should claim to be disabled as they are likely compelled to interview you.
The Rev is taking legal advice on whether he will be able to continue Wings from April 1st, he is saying on twitter.
This would be disastrous. Wings is where we find the truth on a whole range of subjects. If they manage to shut Wings down we will never be free nor safe from political tyranny.
Unless we get a different type of person elected.
A thought has just crossed my mind.
The British state is the undisputable master at throwing dead cats on the table to distract voters attention from something nasty they will be passing on the quiet.
The SNP is no longer a party of independence. It is an empty shell. It has been since 19 September 2014 actively working to preserve the union, not to end it. It has disenfranchised members and voters. It is obvious it has been infiltrated and it is acting as labour under a different flag. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the SNP of today is nothing more than another political arm of the British state acting on its behalf and for its benefit.
This hate bill is the mother of all dead cats. Unworkable, unfair, authoritarian, repressive, stupid. Neither Alistair Jack nor the hopeless Lord Advocate nor the Crown Agent have lifted a finger or issued a sound against this bill, heaven forbid make a move to stop it. It is obvious they think this aberration will serve a purpose for the British state. So here is my question:
What are all those bastards trying to hide? What is going to happen around the 1st April? Is Operation Branchform finally going to wake up and make some progress? Or are we in for some other nasty surprise?
stuart mctavish @ 7:29 am
“Scots have been discriminated against EVEN MORE since the reopening of Parliament in 1998”
Colonialism shifts easily from ‘direct rule’ to partial ‘indirect rule’; i.e. a second layer of oppressive laws to keep the racket going and the fowk haud-doun, meantime offering the natives a few sweeties along the wey.
‘Devolution’ is therefore just another form of colonial administration and hence oppression. And ‘whenever colonialism is imperiled’ such as by the rise of an independence movement the colonizer ‘will reveal his fangs’.
Yousaf’s jaiket is on a shoogly peg.
Kate Forbes signals her intention to stand for the Leadership again.
Stephen Flynn is rumoured to be less than enamoured with Yousaf’s piss poor GE campaign sloganeering and is putting up proxies to broadcast this.
Fools both. Why fight over a poisoned chalice?
Cambridge educated Forbes has presently unexamined baggage. Leaving aside her recent enrolment in the British American Project, Forbes visited Wheaton College “For Christ and His Kingdom” Illinois to deliver a series of paid lectures (October 2023). Wheaton requires all prospective students to sign a covenant declaring homosexuality to be immoral.
Should Forbes be elected Leader, the hyper-woke, Jackson’s Entry payroll will spontaneously combust. Same applies to many of the identity politics obsessed elected representatives.
Forbes is of course Wee Free and existential schisms hold no fear.
Quite why Thames House would plot to destroy an irrevocably weakened and devolutionist SNP puzzles me.
Flynn’s conundrum is different. Seeing himself as a Machiavellian genius (evidenced solely on his Palace coupe against Blackford), Flynn apparently regards temporarily running Holyrood from Westminster as a surmountable challenge. In this he is chronically naive. The Lavender Ceausescus operated a scorched earth policy. There’s no one capable of being deputised as acting First Minister. One glance into the vacant eyes of Shona Robison confirms this. The backbenches have been systematically purged of anything remotely resembling intelligence and individual agency.
Vivian O’Blivion @ 11:19 am
“Fools both. Why fight over a poisoned chalice?”
Yes, and it looks like the split in the SNP is Left/Woke and Right/Christian, a Lowland and Highland ideological fault line.
But, what really matters here?
Neither are nationalists. Hence neither are liberators. And neither knows the economic price of colonialism they enable as its local administrators:
Vivian @11.19am.
Lets not forget that Forbes worked hand in glove with Michael Gove to force freeports (nothing green about them) on Scotland.
https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2023/08/03/the-freeport-ruse-exposed/
Forbes is also of the Yousaf camp that we MUST ask Westminster for an S30 in order to hold an indyref. Forbes ISN’T interested in Scottish independence, and Yousaf the Puppet is on record saying that if Nicola Sturgeon can’t couldn’t deliver Scottish independence NO ONE CAN.
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