Coming Out

by Ian Brotherhood

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OTS has been going since June 2023. In that time we’ve published over 350 posts. 

We’ve built up a small following and are fortunate enough to have a handful of regular donors who’ve helped us stay afloat. Those people will remain nameless (for now anyway) but they know who they are and they know who I am.

Most OTS readers don’t know me, so it’s time for a very belated introduction. My real name is Ian Brotherhood aka Les Bertrand, Rab Clark, Frances Watt, Jo Teque and Eilish McAlison. I am responsible for all the posts published by OTS, the Twitter/X account of the same name and the e-books we’ve published.

Why come out now?

OTS has been a labour of love so far but it was only ever possible at all because my nearest and dearest needed some assurance. Our surname is very distinctive - it wouldn’t be fair for my dear spouse or children to find themselves being held accountable for material I’ve written. Now that almost eighteen months have passed they can see that I haven’t courted disaster by naming the Alphabetties or inviting anyone powerful for a square-go.

The anonymity was only ever about keeping the surname off the site - I’m not naive enough to believe that the identity of this blog's editor wasn’t always known to the intelligence services as are the identities of everyone noted as ‘a person of interest’ via their social media commentary. (Indeed, they showed their hand within days of OTS’s launch.) 

I am not a particularly brave person but I despise bullies and traitors - the political arena is one where such people appear to thrive and is certainly not for the faint of heart. But fearties have consciences, just the same as everyone else, and sometimes it’s just not possible to look the other way and say nothing, no matter how intensely one dreads confrontation.

As a follower of the independence debate since my early teenage years I’ve seen first-hand the kind of behaviour which turns so many people away from political activism: the raw greed and ambition; backstabbing of ‘friends’; entryism; insatiable egos; blatant nepotism; bare-faced lying to fellow party members as well as the electorate; the complete absence of genuine empathy with the very same people being courted for votes; the impossible task of dealing with obvious Britstate intelligence assets infiltrating branches of independence-supporting parties; woke virtue-signalling, rigid ideological posturing etc. 

But more worrying than any of that is the undeniable truth that independence supporters who dare raise their voices outwith the orthodox movement (i.e. the SNP) - or worse, actually criticise that party - are targeted by what Alex Salmond referred to in his 2014 Calton Hill speech as ‘powerful forces’. They’ve gone for Stuart Campbell, Mark Hirst, Craig Murray, Dave Llewellyn and many others. People have served time in prison, had their careers/reputations smashed or found themselves and their families subjected to horrendous stress as punishment for nothing more than having an opinion or showing contempt for corrupt officialdom. 

And, of course, they finally got Alex himself. Only a month since his passing, and with the public memorial service yet to be held, the British State has redoubled its despicable effort to have the man’s reputation trampled even further into the dirt. But it’s not working. Instead, the movement is resurgent and even some staunch unionists have expressed disgust not only at the tactics being used but also the patent injustice of allowing legal proceedings against SNP/Scotgov to drag on interminably. Justice delayed is justice denied. To all.

Like many others I supported the SNP consistently in every election, local and national, although I wasn’t a member. (I was just 16 in 1979 and would’ve had no vote in that year’s referendum). I was a member of the SSP for a couple of years before it imploded in 2004 and renewed my membership in 2012 as the referendum loomed. I quit the SSP the day after the dismal 2015 GE election results were confirmed. Along with many others I paid for a temporary membership of the SNP as a sign of support for the Blackford ‘walkout’ (can you believe that was over six years ago?). I became an Alba member when it was launched and have my wee badge to prove it but have never attended any branch meetings. 

As I write, Craig Murray is in Beirut. At 66 years of age and with a young family, he should be at home enjoying retirement and writing his memoirs. Instead he is a high-value target in one of the most dangerous war zones on the planet. There are many people, like me, who will never do anything remotely similar for any cause. But we can all do something in memory of those who are no longer with us. The older we are the keener the sense of urgency. 

Over the past century, innumerable Scots gave what they could of their time and money to build a party which eventually betrayed them, but each and every one of them believed in something greater than themselves. The generations before them, spanning the previous two centuries, bore resistance to an unjust political union in which their families had had no say. That peaceful resistance, eventually finding form in a ‘democratic’ political party, brought us so close to independence in the past decade that only desperate, criminal sabotage could stop it. That the sabotage came from traitors operating in the shadows - from people we once trusted?! - makes the failure all the more tragic. It also underscores the horrible truth that no single person should ever again be entrusted with the challenge of regaining our freedom. 

No-one is a saint, unbribable, chaste, with a flawless past. And that acceptance - that we are all individual flawed human beings - makes the whole idea of ‘campaigning’ so much easier: no need to fear party apparatchiks putting you through the vetting mill, or the knock at the door from a hungry journalist who’s heard something titillating about your past. We have become too used to the stereotype of the career politician as portrayed in popular culture - that familiarity has made us too ready to accept the mediocre and the disappointing. We have come to expect betrayal and the bastards know it. Now, as we see Westminster SNP MPs weaving their plans to get further employment in Holyrood after they’re hoofed, we can see the awful result of complacency and we have to accept our share of the blame. Better to campaign as individuals, using whatever skill-sets we possess, than entrust the future of our nation to a gaggle of principle-free charlatans who release ‘promises’ in the same way that the rest of us fart.

But, when all’s said and done, the cause is greater than any political party. Greater than any one character. That cause - the struggle for freedom for future generations - is as important now as it ever was. If OTS helps, even in a tiny way, to help foster the serious thought and difficult discussions which have to happen as part of the final heave to break loose then it is worth doing and worth doing well. To that end we extend a sincere invitation to those who feel they have something to say and just need a space to say it. OTS is such a space and it should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway, that the use of pseudonyms will always be allowed.

:)

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