realpeterabell

[realpeterabell]

The ideal of democracy is that voters should make informed decisions. Those who promulgate falsehoods are enemies of democracy and should be recognised as such.

[realpeterabell]

Be very clear that the issue in 2026 is self-determination and not independence.

[realpeterabell]

Even if the politician is smart enough to realise that self-determination is the issue and not 'independence' per se, they won't talk about self-determination unless they are wrongly treating it as a synonym for independence - the easy slogan.

[realpeterabell]

If the people of Scotland are sovereign, then the Scottish Parliament is whatever we say it is!

[realpeterabell]

The thinking behind #ScottishUDI takes 'independence' back to where it should have been all along - outside of and encompassing all of the associations into which people are driven to organise themselves.

[realpeterabell]

To my mind, failing to end the Union and actively preserving and protecting the Union are two very different things. If the SNP is thought of as a Unionist party and the Union continues then the SNP is not failing. If the SNP is a Unionist party, then it is a very successful party.

[realpeterabell]

For Martin and her colleagues in the Scottish Government, Westminster sits at the centre of the constitutional issue. This is the old thinking. The thinking of the colonised mind.

[realpeterabell]

Given the proliferation of nominally pro-independence parties, it is surely important that people be provided with the tools to make a rational, informed choice.

[realpeterabell]

We want our heroes to be “just like us” – and so when someone truly exceptional comes along, we pull them back rather than push them forward.

[realpeterabell]

My first thought was to point out that John Swinney has no "strategy over Scottish independence", and nothing suggests that he has done any thinking on the matter he's being urged to "rethink". But the headline grabbed my attention, so perhaps I shouldn't knock it.

[realpeterabell]

Just as the 'one party' notion is dead and begging to be buried, so the 'one umbrella' notion is either inconceivable or a non-viable embryo.

[realpeterabell]

In many ways - certainly enough ways! - a Section 30 referendum is the opposite of what we require. A Section 30 referendum can never be other than consultative and non-self-executing. A proper constitutional referendum is determinative and self-executing.

[realpeterabell]

If the cabal in control of the SNP has any talent at all it is a highly developed talent for selective ignoring. Their lack of awareness has become legendary. There is so much that they choose not to know, one wonders at times if there is anything left for them to have genuine knowledge of.

[realpeterabell]

The only silver lining to this dark cloud of squandered opportunity is that while the politicians and parties took to using 'independence' as nothing more than an electioneering device, elsewhere in the independence movement people were doing the serious work of developing nationalist thinking . . .

[realpeterabell]

The SNP is flogging independence like a holiday destination, but as far as we can tell from what they say, there are no transport links to this place. They have plenty to say about how wonderful the destination is. But they tell us nothing about how they plan to get us there.

[realpeterabell]

It's not just about numbers. Even if there were thousands of members thinking it was time to oust the cabal there is so little networking within the SNP that all or most of them might believe they are on their own.

[realpeterabell]

Independence doesn’t need a caretaker. It needs a catalyst.