Hey everyone Now the referendum is over and done or at least it is according to the unionists, many of the people of Scotland are in for a very rude awakening as to how we are perceived by those who think they matter. Between now and the UK general election in May 2015 we will be told by the forces of unionism and social conservatism to shut up and do as we’re told. Personally I wish the unionists Good luck with that one as I think they may need it. I for one will not be bullied and neither will anyone else who voted yes just over a month ago.
During the next few months we will see a concerted effort by all the unionist parties to freeze Scotland out of any meaningful political debate and reduce our country to no more than a sideshow on the margins of there United Kingdom.
This may not be nice but the cold hard fact is that however it might be swallow Scotland was only interesting to the metropolitan elites whilst it was threatening to vote yes and reclaim its independence, having bottled it as the British establishment probably suspected we would we can once more be relegated to the colonial backwater they have long perceived it to be and the coming general election will go a long way to illustrating this point only too clearly.
For the next seven months we will be subjected to the idea that Labour and the Conservatives are somehow different beasts as they compete in a battle for who sits on the Government side on the green benches of Westminster. The truth of the matter is shall we say somewhat different. Both parties campaigned together to save the union and have their own agenda for making sure that the UK stayed together. For the Labour Party is was blatant self interest based on electoral geography. They have long regarded Scotland as theirs to own and many Labour seats resemble rotten boroughs such has been decline and decay they have presided over for many decades. For the Conservatives, they didn’t want to be seen as the party which lost Scotland for the union especially since we are a nation rich in resources and skills.
Now however the love in is over and for a few months at least they can indulge in a phoney war as they try to accentuate the limited differences between them. This will be done in three televised debates between those who have and those whom the media think have a genuine chance of becoming the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This is I think unrepresentative of democracy in the sense that Nigel Farage leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party has been invited to take part in a debate despite leading a party with only one MP. This becomes ridiculous when you consider that there will no place at the lectern for soon to be SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon or Plaid Cmyru leader Leanne Wood despite the fact the parties they lead will in all probability lead a substantially higher group of Westminster MP’s than Mr Farage, as UKIP though a good way to express a protest vote will not in my opinion replicate there European election success at a general election.
The fact that the SNP will be excluded from the TV debates yet again as they were in 2010 becomes all the more alarming when one considers that they are now the third largest party in the entire United Kingdom and have in the space of the month since the referendum saw their membership shoot up from 25,000 which even at those figures no matter the Labour Party may try to claim the largest party in Scotland to 82,000 a figure which is way beyond that of the unionist parties.
If they persist in using the line that the leader of the SNP cannot govern the United Kingdom I think it may be prudent to remind them that whilst that might technically be true there is more chance that they or for that matter Plaid will being king makers than either UKIP or for that matter the Liberal Democrats whom I fully expect though do not necessarily want to be a party in freefall in the early hours of the 8th of May 2015 the date of there very own black Friday. It will be I think a bit of a miracle if they even manage to return 28 of their MP’s to the next UK Parliament meaning that there number will be halved and I think Scotland so long a happy hunting ground for the Lib Dems will be particularly terrain for them with the SNP in a favourable position to take a couple of significant scalps.
No doubt this talk of a potential SNP advance at Westminster will be played down by a unionist press and media who will be the same obedient little brits they were during the referendum doing all they can to generate fear of the SNP in the same way they did with the yes campaign. There is however a problem with this tactic, you see the scare tactics used against Scotland is precisely what has motivated so many of us to join not just the SNP but the Greens, Solidarity, and the Scottish Socialist Party all of whom also supported and continue to support independence for our nation. This tells me that the Scottish people have undergone a political awakening and will not be as easily sedated as many unionists would like and they would be fools to think otherwise.
The evidence however suggests that this is exactly what the unionist parties are thinking. These people seem to think that by voting no to independence Scotland is somehow willing to go to business as usual. I, you will not be surprised to know to do not wish to partake of this lethal cocktail which is in my view a deadly mixture of arrogance and complacency. Scotland has changed since the referendum. A nation angry about the way we were conned by a vow made in panic the day before the vote we have woke up to new possibilities of having the power to change our society and our country for the better. It would I think serve unionists well to remember that this was not the 80-20 or 70-30 landslides they were wanting or indeed in some cases predicting, this was far too close for their comfort and they would do well to show a bit more humility than some of their less intellectually able members have been demonstrating of late.
As I see it the problem the unionists face is convincing ordinary Scots they will put Scotland’s interests before their own and when the Labour Party campaign for our votes and say as they always do vote for us we’re not the Tories we can and will say but you campaigned with them in the independence referendum so that means your really the best of friends and this phoney war is exactly that phoney. I have a feeling Labour will need to work harder than they ever have if they are even to come close to retaining the influence they have had in Scotland for far too long and with the genie out of the bottle and the unionist vote split three or possibly four ways the coming election could be a very good night for the SNP. Now to achieve the success I predict and I say this as a party member can be ours I say this to my friends and fellow Nationalists, no matter how tempting it may be we must not be seduced in taking any part in this phoney war and remember we have a real one to fight. Yes it would be nice to perform well in the UK general election particularly as this could have ramifications as to how much funding we receive but our real energy must be diverted towards winning another Scottish Election in 2016 and securing a third term for our party as the government of Scotland. It is by this route and only by this route that we will eventually when the time is right deliver another referendum and believe me when we do there will be a very different result which will bring our nation the independence and full political sovereignty our people deserve and need if we are ever to flourish in the way other small nations do across Europe and the wider world.
No doubt some people will ask why I am still so optimistic about Scotland’s future especially so soon after our defeat this time. Answering them as honestly as I can I say that it is my considered opinion that on the 18th September Scotland to use a sporting analogy voted to show the United Kingdom the yellow card. This was to give it one last chance to prove it was worth preserving. The high handed attitude shown since by the vast majority of the better known unionist politicians suggests they have learned precisely nothing in the last two and a half years and attempting to delude themselves that Scotland will somehow do as we are told to allow them to get back to business as usual. Make no mistake this general election, this battle for the green benches is all about Westminster men and the closer we come to election day the more this will be demonstrated. It is this kind of behaviour that illustrates to me and many others that it won’t be too long before Scotland decides to end what I have always viewed as remote control rule and the red card is finally delivered on the day the United Kingdom is united no more.
Love And Best Wishes
Gayle X
Tartantights Blog 
A local political history question.
A well known figure in the East End days of political yore was John Wheatley.
Early socialist, MP for Shettleston and all round good guy.
In fact his early socialist beliefs got him into trouble with the RC church he was a member of.
To the point a mob led by the local priest turned up at his house.
Thing is, an author by the name of Robert Ronson from the West Midlands claims not only John Wheatley could be his grandfather but that Wheatley was a local East End racketeer.
Claims that Wheatley went from rags to riches in the space of months without any visible means of support.
He wrote a book (fiction) called “No mean affair” about his granny and Wheatley.
Could you shed any light on this story G.