SNP’s Trident policy plays into Putin’s hands

A Herald article Jun 25,by Neil Mackay: SNP’s Trident policy plays into Putin’s hands

It complements my post here on 23 Jan 2022: Remember it was Ukraine who gave up the Bomb. This is a politics writer who has been trendily CND ever since the Cold War 80s days when it was so hegemonically the left fashion around its period in control of Labour. So when the Soviet Union existed, he was CND in face of it. But no more on face of Putin now after Ukraine.

A conversion like Einstein's in 1934. Saying that Putin's Russia now poses the same choices.

As left wing Unionists pointed out during the ref, indy won't remove the Bomb from Britain. It would just move it, and it would still have the whole island's safety as its meaning and red line, because letting an invader take Scotland just opens the door to England too. But instead, in a British election, as is on now, the concern is against the SNP exercising leverage upon British nuclear choices.

time to vote In

Although Cameron's EU deal brings in some inevitable nasty Tory economic barriers, which a future Labour led government can easily enough drop, yet there is also a surprising strand of good in Cameron's deal.

He has drawn some red lines that protect member countries' democratic sovereignty and stop the growth of centralised commission power to tell them to do things. This has actually made the EU more democratic in a way that folks have been saying ever since the 80s is needed. It has shown that members can reform the institution in more democratic ways and put their foot down to halt undemocratic drifts. It's a milestone of democratisation in the EU's development.

Time to vote In, or Stay, or Remain, on Jun 23, whatever they will call it. They will have to avoid calling it Yes when there are still stubborn blue Yes window posters around referring to leaving another union.

AND MEANWHILE?OH MY GUUÀAAAAARDD !!!

George Galloway!!! He was a massive asset for the indy No campaign. He was the most prominent name among radical leaders to support the British union, he showed decisively to many that you could be unionist and left wing. So, now, WHY THE HELL ISN'T HE UNIONIST FOR THIS UNION TOO? He is anti-EU and has already been photoed alongside Farage !!! campaigning for out !!! After in the indyref he wouldn't be seen alongside the Tories.

How totally Gordon Bennett is that? What a jerk particularly because leaving the EU keeps the British union unstable and there is continuing argument for independence on that trigger. Present polls don't make the nat leaders keen to call a second indyref, but the constitutional argument and threat of it is always there, an EU Out vote could still help to lead to it eventually.

How will Galloway then argue against it, when at the Out rally which the Daily Telegraph site showed a clip of, he calls lifetime important "the demand that Britain shall be an independent sovereign and democratic country", exactly the pointless nationalist sentiment he condemned for Scotland saying that creating national barriers is bad! Work Galloway out !!! eh? What he said is nonsense because Britain is already perpetually sovereign, Cameron's deal has clearly established that, with the EU treaties now formally exempting us from the aim of "ever closer union."

I want some more

Margo Macdonald and Patrick Harvie are wrong. It's like we are Oliver Twist and they are taking away our second helping, our second question.

Their motives against the second question are openly to increase the stakes for their preferred side, Yes, on the first question, which they think will make them more likely to win. That they think so is only a fallacy of true faith nationalism, it is an unproven act of faith and the polls make it look just as likely their tactics will backfire. The voters are already obviously growingly unsure towards Yes, so they may feel even more unsure if they know that the Yes side is holding them to ransom to vote Yes by depriving them of a second question. they may then vote No. They may be put off Yes by this picture of the forces behind it.

The recent experience of the AV referendum showed how easily a doubt about the character of the proposed change will make voters feel safer to run back into their caves to the devil they know and vote No. Holding voters to ransom to reject the option that you think they are worst off with did not work for Labour in its hard left controlled period in the 1980s, when twice the hard left believed voters would be forced to vote for hard left policies when the alternative was Thatcher, and on a British scale at least, they voted for Thatcher.

A second question is fairer to voters. It gives us a more complete say, a complete range of options. Suspect anyone who takes it away.