The 2% Gang

George-Galloway-ownedUKIP and George Galloway are the 2% gang – statistical anomalies in Scottish politics. Here Alan Smart reports on their collective nonsense.

“I’ll tell you what would happen when an independent Scotland proved to be a chimera. Scots would turn inwards, turn on the English and turn on each other. First they would come for the ‘unionists’ as they describe people like me. We would become a ‘fifth column’. Soon other scapegoats would have to be found. Catholic schools, judging by the cyber-nats-speak, would have to succumb. Then it might be the immigrants, brown as well as white who would be ‘taking our jobs’, ‘our houses’, ‘marrying our women’ and the rest. We would become an embittered people, the very opposite of the Scottish internationalist we have been for so long.
– George Galloway, Red Molluca, 19th May, 2013

Sound familiar? The same shit spouted on Twitter by my brother Ian Smart in his disastrous Twitter foray barely a week ago. I am just waiting for Jack McConnell to directly join in. He is supportive enough to re-tweet their musings.

Because it is no co-incidence that these old chums spout the same smear. Their evidence-free and baseless assertions come from failed generation of Scottish Labour activists who, having delivered near nothing – but managing to enrich themselves in the process – will now spend their later years attacking all things nationalist. The irony is though, nationalism was a horse they themselves were happy to ride, until the good people of Scotland clocked they could do better than be led by these self-serving poseurs, who only played the card to gain them some tactical leverage in their internal battles within the Labour Party. Self-determination for them always meant to be on their terms and within parameters of the British labour movement.

This more than anything else explains their later day extreme unionism, so extreme that even the Better Together campaign has all but disowned them: I do wish though Better Together would just do this in quite unequivocal terms. Tell them this is just unacceptable. Slap them down, so as the rest of us can have a sensible debate on Scotland future, uncontaminated by these sad and time-warped sectarians. How about it, Alastair?

Because as I said in my last blog about my brother, this stuff really is the gutter. The politics of Enoch Powell: Stir up a sectional fear for a cheap headline and narrow political gain, not remotely thinking through the potential implications and consequences of your spoutings.

Galloway’s latest article is written under the pretext of defending Nigel Farage’s right to free speech, following some enthusiastic harassment of him by members of the Radical Independence Conference last week in Edinburgh. Now you can view this incident in a number of ways, and certainly I can think of better ways of combating UKIP in Scotland than confronting its leader having a quite pint in a Royal Mile pub. But Galloway don’t just make that point, but rather goes into altogether murkier territory, which amounts to a smear on the entire national movement in Scotland.

We are told “cybernats” – and I presume I am one – are ” the mirror image of the Faragists” But he get worse…..

“It was once said that anti-semitism was the socialism of fools. So too is the idea that Scotland broken from the rest of this small, island of English- speaking people will somehow lead to some kind of progressive beacon of hope for the world”

So a man who has spent a lifetime dodging the unsupported smear that he is himself anti-semitic, equates supporters of independence, and the left leaning ones in particular, as being little better than anti-semites. Just how low can you go George?

I am kind of aware Galloway’s stock in Scotland is now about as low as Farage’s – that 2% of the vote in Glasgow in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections took some doing. But I am also aware that beyond Scotland, near universally amongst people who have never worked with him, he retains a significant cult following. So for their benefit, it might be useful to end with a simple list:

Parties in Scotland who support Scottish Independence:

The Scottish National Party

The Scottish Green Party

The Scottish Socialist Party

The Socialist Workers Party

The International Socialist Group

Solidarity

The Scottish Republican Socialist Party

Parties in Scotland Who Oppose Scottish Independence:

The Scottish Labour Party

The Scottish Liberal Democrats

The Scottish Conservative Party

UKIP

The British National Party

The Scottish Defence League

The Orange Order

Figure that out……….

Comments (10)

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  1. Tom Dunlop says:

    “The 2% Gang” I think that sums up the totality of the nutters and the British elite (and there hanger-ons) that are defending the union, which benefits no-one but themselves on these islands.

  2. David McCann says:

    George Galloway. The rather too clever politician who loves rhetoric above truth, manages to stoop lower than when on one’s knees, drinking from a saucer!

  3. DougtheDug says:

    The 2% gang. I like that.

    If George Galloway’s piece in Red Molucca was entered into Better Together Bingo then he’d be calling “full house” in seconds.

    He’s got a hate filled anti-English mob chasing Nigel Farage out of Edinburgh.

    Alex Salmond making things worse. (How is not specified)

    Nigel Farage being denied the right to speak

    The SNP as anti-English racists

    Cybernats in a “poisonous parade of flag-waving and militancy”

    Equating the SNP and UKIP supporters

    Scots trying to deny him the right to speak on twitter.

    Sean Connery and Brian Souter.

    A permanent Tory government in England if Scotland becomes independent.

    Scotland will be unable make it as an independent country.

    After independence Scotland will fall into some kind of Mad Max cycle of internal repression against pretty much everyone after independence.

    Race and Religion being brought into the debate

    Scotland will be too small, poor and stupid to have its own navy or defend itself.

    Scotland will be too small, poor and stupid to have its own embassies.

    Scotland will be too small, poor and stupid to have its own currency.

    The oil is running out.

    Independence is all just to make Alex Salmond Prime Minister of Scotland.

    Brigadoon

    Scotland is not any different from anywhere in England

    World War II (Our finest hour)

    The only thing I can say in his favour is that he left Braveheart out but that’s cancelled out by mentioning Brigadoon.

    I love this quote.

    “I have no doubt that when I pitch up to speak on the Fringe of the Edinburgh Festival this summer, that the same thing as happened to Nigel Farage will happen to me. ”

    George still thinks he’s an important player in both Scottish and UK politics. Important enough to be silenced in fact even though Nigel wasn’t.

    It’s funny the way things work out. I’m neither a firebrand nor a revolutionary but as my dream of breaking Scotland out of the British establishment and British state gets closer it turns out that I’m far, far more revolutionary than George Galloway who’s fighting desperately in the unionist corner side by side with David Cameron and Nigel Farage in order to preserve the British Establishment.

    1. bellacaledonia says:

      Better Together Bingo, there’s a good idea…

  4. Don’t forget the Scottish Democratic Alliance among parties supporting independence standing it’s first candidate in the Aberdeen Donside By Election.

  5. Barontorc says:

    Whoa! – where does George G get his base line from? He rightly takes the Palestinian cause to he heart, he stuffed the ego-bloated senators of the USA, he is an emphatic speaker of note and usually
    calls it right, but …… when it comes to Scotland – whoops!!

    ‘Dear George, enough, is enough George, get inside the tent and stop pissing into it.

    Independence is happening in spite of the full arsenal of twisted barbs heading this way. The UK is closing down and guess what – Scotland didn’t do it, the stuffed shirts managed it all on their own and you really don’t suit a stuffed shirt.

    The fact that William Hills’ are giving 3-1 for a YES vote in 2014 and 6-1 for independence by 2020 should tell you the writing’s on the wall.

    If you have any respect for the people of Scotland – you know the wee people who see life flashing past their eyes with the lies after lies belted out to keep them wee, then get your arse in gear and start looking after your ain folk as well.’

    Dissed yours!

  6. alharron says:

    “Now you can view this incident in a number of ways, and certainly I can think of better ways of combating UKIP in Scotland than confronting its leader having a quite pint in a Royal Mile pub. ”

    Except, of course, Farage wasn’t just having a quiet pint, he was promoting his political agenda. The whole reason for his visit was to spread the word of UKIP: do you really think he’d bother to fly all the way up to Edinburgh just to enjoy a pint?

  7. Dave Coull says:

    “I can think of better ways of combating UKIP in Scotland than confronting its leader having a quite pint in a Royal Mile pub” – but he wasn’t “having a quiet pint in a Royal Mile pub”. He was holding a press and media conference in the pub. Without even bothering to ask the landlord of the pub if it was okay. The pub does have private rooms which can be hired, but Farage didn’t do that. He was in a public house, a place which, by definition, is open to the public. So some of the public showed up, and started asking him awkward questions. After over twenty minutes of Farage avading their questions, things got a bit rowdy. The only surprising thing about this is that Farage thought he could hold a private meeting concerned with public affairs in a public house. Here’s a question: you’ve got 20 people in a pub. Which one has the right to free speech? The answer from the media appears to be, the extremely rich right-wing bigot who inherited millions from his daddy is the only one entitled to free speech.

  8. Heather says:

    Yes good article but Farage was promoting his political agenda, I don’t think anyone in the radical independence campaign would go to the bother of confronting someone just out for quiet pint. Galloway is an embarrassment, simple really.

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