Alba, Jackanory and a ‘Very Strange Election’
The astonishing revelations about the lack of democracy within the Alba party keep coming. On March 1 the blogger Craig Murray revealed that he had been asked to stand aside from the National Executive by Alex Salmond, despite being elected.
The former Ambassador wrote: “I have owed an explanation and I now feel free to give it. I was elected to Alba national exec last year and declined to take up the post – thus disrespecting my nominators and voters. In truth, Alex phoned me and asked me to decline. He said there was somebody else he needed to be elected. I would do pretty well anything for Alex and I agreed, with some sorrow. Those elections were very strange – I believe the results were never published. I am glad to have got that off my chest. I want to apologise to those who nominated and voted for me. I do hope the party will come together again now and those who left will rejoin.”
He continued: “A number of people left the party, with more or less noise, at that time. I was very sorry for it. Alex had asked me to stand down in a conversation he had specified was confidential. At that moment I knew nothing about the much wider problems around that election. I felt honour bound to respect his confidence, but now feel I might tell people what happened. I honestly do not know what he was doing or planning, but I absolutely trust it was in his opinion in the interests of getting to Independence.”
“Alex phoned me, told me I had been elected, and asked me to stand down, while I was about to enter a meeting at the UN in Geneva. He said he needed an immediate agreement because the results were due to be announced that morning. That is simply what happened.”
Denise Findlay has said: “The same thing happened to me. I was standing for Organisation Convener two days before voting reopened Alex phoned me and asked me to withdraw. Like Craig I did as Alex asked. He didn’t tell me the reason but asked me to do it out of loyalty to him.”
Without going into the utter shambles that is the Alba party (if you want to delve into the murky story this blog by Jackie Anderson and Jacqui Bijster might be a good place to start), it’s worth noting first that the unquestioning loyalty to a leader who is wrecking internal party democracy should be an alarm bell to anyone tracking the element of far-right tendencies within the shards and splinters of the nationalist movement. It’s also worth noticing that the complete lack of any understanding of the connections between ways and means has been a characteristic of this tendency within fringe elements of the independence movement for years. You want to create a new democracy but you have no understanding of, or respect for … democracy? The story also reveals a distance between those who want independent critical thinking and platforms and those who want uncritical loyalty to leaders. The blogs and platforms that support all this are full of group-think, dead certainty and nodding heads of self-reinforcing nonsense. The irony is, of course, that all of these events mirror the very things the Alba faithful accuse the SNP of – centralised leadership, and a complete lack of transparency and internal democracy.
As the blogger James Kelly (who was expelled from the party), has been diligently logging the shambles in the Alba Papers said: “Craig Murray’s shock revelations about Alex Salmond add to the mountain of evidence that Alba’s internal democracy has been a sham from day one.”
The revelations come to the fore just as Alba is having its two-person leadership debate televised.
The party is not in a good place, and someone somewhere must be able to do better than this – which looks like a bad re-boot of Jackanory – with Tasmina addressing the audience like little children.
In among the shambles, there is a political story, sort of. The two candidates vying for the leadership of this strange thing, are caught between Ash Regan, who is now openly arguing working with Reform UK at Holyrood, and Kenny McAskill who represents continuity with the Salmond Brand, despite all of the above, and the disastrous electoral record that has been delivered.
But Regan’s warm words towards Reform aren’t just the voice of honest pragmatism as she frames it, they represent an absolutely clear strand of thinking within the far-right of the nationalist movement. The Reverend Stuart Campbell showed all of his political acumen writing that siding with Reform UK might be the best option for getting a second referendum, forcing the National into publishing an article stating: “REFORM UK have ruled out supporting a Scottish independence referendum after social media rumours suggested Nigel Farage would consider granting one.”
The Dream Lives On (and on)
None of this will come as a surprise to anyone following the far-right trajectory of some of those around the Alba project. One such, among many, who has voiced support for MAGA and Trump ideas is Chris McEleny the former general secretary of the Alba Party, and Regan ally. But, underlining the deep divisions within Alba, McEleny has been sacked and his membership is ‘under review’. Kenny MacAskill told Sky News: “The NEC has terminated his employment, and he has been notified of his dismissal for gross misconduct.”
Despite this McEleny (now calling himself “General Secretary Primus of Alex Salmond’s Alba Party“) announced on Saturday (‘Alba’s Chris McEleny issues update on deputy leadership bid‘) that he has met the threshold required for election to Deputy Leader despite nominations opening while the news broke of his sacking. He added that he had received support from across 20 of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas and that “Alba Party members want to see an end to what they see as needless infighting”.
McEleny is a proud Trump supporter and is desperate that the invitation of a state visit for Trump go ahead despite the Oval Office meltdown. He recently tweeted saying: “Put quite simply, there has never been an example in history that the Monarch of the crowns has issued an invite and withdrawn it. To do so would be the act of child politicians. The agreement to do so is a matter of separate debate.”
There is now an edifying spectacle of two wings of the same party bickering over who is more loyal to the great leader, recently deceased. But, assuming the victory of the continuity candidate (Kenny McAskill), who is to say that the loose coalition of nationalists gathered around their clutch of reactionary policies and outlooks might not break-away and form yet another pro-independence party centred around their various obsessions?
It’s a crowded field with Peter Bell’s A New Scotland Party, Alba, Colette Walker’s Independence for Scotland Party, the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Sovereignty, the Scottish Green Party among others, but anything is possible. Certainly a breakaway from Alba with Ash Regan in charge centred around Farage-friendly policies, a weird combination of ultra-traditional family beliefs, a hatred of environmentalism in any form, Christian nationalism, and a low-level blood and soil nationalism would certainly have the immediate backing of at least two prominent newspaper columnists.
Some of this depends on to what extent whoever takes charge of Alba defines it on a left-right spectrum and what that means in reality. If it is a construct that speaks to an old order, deifies its former leader and has a reactionary core despite ‘talking left’ it might well remain a home for many of the culturally conservative forces attracted to Regan. Unity however, given the bad blood on show, seems unlikely.
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Ferrets and sacks (plural) spring to mind!
For starters not everyone who aligns with Reform UK should be labelled “far right” or “right wing”, many women are supportive of their stance on women’s rights, belief in biology and opposition to gender ideology which is being forced on the public. That doesn’t make people “right wing” but it pushes people into the arms of so called right wing parties simply because none of the “left” parties no longer represent their views.
Gender ideology has been a cuckoo in the independence nest and whilst people still deep down support independence for Scotland, they no longer trust SNP/Greens to be entrusted to govern in any independent Scottish State. This has been evident at the polling booth where there was a loss of support for SNP in the recent General Election and by elections. Unfortunately Labour have been proved to be just as bad, if not worse than the Tories. Scotland is facing a very poor choice in next years Holyrood election.
It’s time for a lot of self reflection and facing up to reality for Scottish politicians.
I’d love to know how you think you disaggregate Farage’s far-right views from the ones you agree with on gender reform? Do you think you’d elect his representatives and you’d get the gender policies you back and nothing else?
Why do you think the far-right supports these ideas?
Your comparison to Jackanory is so good – and that’s exactly how Tasmina comes across.
However, you’re falling into the trap that so many commentators do. You’re assuming that anyone who believes that sex is biologically determined is right-wing. That’s not true, and it’s really a bit of an insult to people who look for evidence for their beliefs.
Alba has proved to be a huge disappointment to those who, like myself, were founder members of the party. Neither candidate for the leadership has given any plans to address the problems.
What is needed is a commitment to publishing in full the results of the 2023 elections as a starting point.
“You’re assuming that anyone who believes that sex is biologically determined is right-wing.”
As far as I can see, the post you’re replying to makes no such assumption. I consider myself fairly left-wing and happen to think that the issue of gender self-id, in particular, is obviously daft, and any position of cultural dominance it had is pretty much gone. I also think it’s worth asking why it is that all the most reactionary people in the world are so supportive of “the rights of women and girls” on this specific issue and no other.
Attacks on approaches to gender are a key component of the alt-right regime taking shape in the USA. Its composed of a number of strange alliances around anti-vaccine, anti-gay and trans rights and closely connected, women’s right to choose. All mixed into a soup built around the ‘great replacement’ theory. Its crucial that we see the connections here one strand feeds into another. We need our wits about us.
Just thought I’d mention, the communist party doesn’t support trans communities either, just thought I’d say that, and anyone that calls tommy Sheridan or Kenny Mac far right is out to lunch.
Don’t know why the party who’s policies are left wing, and republican says there far right, it as if certain people in the movement are determined to castigate Alba members, I agree that the internal democracy seems to have become a shambles, and there are two or three people out of 6000 members that seem to be in the wrong shop, but many people that joined would have gone, as I did, to the ISP first but though Alex’s name might attract folk, in terms of PR, but it seems Alex highjack us, oh well, saying that as for policy it seemed pretty direct to me, when we voted on party policy, unlike the SNP, who just don’t listen at all to the membership. The hope was too create a better positioned independence party that took the policy failings of 2014 seriously. Pity no one wants to talk about that.
The whole point of Ash working with Reform and other parties is the fact that she can pick and choose what to support and what not to support – there’s not a single party that represents a persons views 100% so you have to decide which policies resonate and are most important to you and vote accordingly and for a lot of women it’s the policies I mentioned in my post
Nobody ever gets exactly what they want from any political party. The point that ‘disaggregating’ material reality from politics means that the mainstream parties have gifted votes to Reform, if people can bring themselves to vote at all.
At the moment I (and many others) feel totally disenfranchised because there is no party whose policies I totally agree with so my choice will be made based on which policies are most important to me and I’ll vote accordingly.
Many women are prioritising personal safety, freedom to speak about biological reality and the safety of their children from indoctrination in our educational establishments and in their opinion the political parties pushing that agenda most resonates with them and independence becomes of secondary importance.
There is no party whose policies tick all the boxes at the moment. Our politicians need to get out of their bubble and connect with what really matters to the people whose vote they seek
I appreciate you’re feeling of disenfranchisement but I don’t think you have thought about or answered the question, which is, if you support a far-right party like Reform to get the one 16th of their policies that you agree with – you also get the other policies too. But maybe you don;t mean actually voting Reform maybe you just mean voting Alba, in which case it doesn’t matter because no-one will be elected.
Who are the “many women” on whose behalf you are speaking and for whose supposed benefit you’re willing to line up with such a ghastly political party as Reform UK?
You’re certainly not speaking for me. I don’t feel in the least wee bit threatened by what you call “gender ideology”; I have no increased concerns for my “personal safety” – I spent two nights recently in a mixed-gender hospital ward and couldn’t have cared less who was in the next bed.
Just who is compromising your “freedom to speak about biological reality”? Some folk never seem to stop banging on about it.
I’m 69 and I know that our society is changing. On the whole, I believe it’ll be a good thing if we all become more tolerant of difference and get out of our own bubble.
Instead of helping with the making a new country, are you really going to choose to stand against its creation?
What Regan does is academical because, as seems very likely,, she’ll not be sitting in the Scottish Parliament after the election next year.
If you lie down with dogs (Reform UK) then your going to pick up fleas.
“Let a hundred flowers bloom”, said Mao as he enticed democrats and reformers to their doom.
As with the 1960’s communists, our lot are splintering into smaller and smaller bands of “true believers” let by creepy voices like those of the Rev Whosit.
However, the more the merrier for the entertainment of the masses. From bread and circuses to crazed-eyed pish and fury!
Your comparison to Jackanory is so good – and that’s exactly how Tasmina comes across.
However, you’re falling into the trap that so many commentators do. You’re assuming that anyone who believes that sex is biologically determined is right-wing. That’s not true, and it’s really a bit of an insult to people who look for evidence for their beliefs.
Alba has proved to be a huge disappointment to those who, like myself, were founder members of the party. Neither candidate for the leadership has given any plans to address the problems. What is needed is a commitment to publishing in full the results of the 2023 elections as a starting point.
Hi Neil – do you advocate starting a new party, returning to the SNP like James Kelly, or reforming Alba?
Ideally reforming Alba in its original guise.
We need a party which stands on the list and which supports independence. The d’Hondt system makes it virtually impossible to truly reflect the views of voters: two independence parties are needed to counter the balance of one indy party against 4 unionist parties.
But Alba has to be a democratic party – as your piece highlights. It’s been run by a ‘power triad’ under Alex Salmond up till now – and the candidates for leader don’t seem to be tackling that problem.
I was a founder member of Alba but left after the 2023 election fiasco.
As a start the results of that election need to be published in full, with a commitment to establishing the member-led party which we were promised by Alex Salmond.
The constitution reform panel could make a huge difference if it tackles the democratic deficit which is repelling activists and holding Alba back.
I have two questions Neil:
1/ If the behaviours on display are by people who modelled themselves on – and still seem to semi-worship Salmond – what faith should anyone have that any reforms are likely?
2/ If Alba polled so badly during Salmond’s lifetime, what hope is there for it do much better after his passing?
(btw I share and understand much and many of the frustrations that led to Alba coming about, I just don’t understand how or why we’re supposed to believe in it)
Good points, both.
1/ I was never a Salmond loyalist – I voted against him in the 90s because I thought he was too much of a gradualist: Margaret Bain was my choice. So I joined Alba believing in the 2nd party for indy stance, and that Alex Salmond was a figurehead to attract supporters to the party.
I think at the end he was an ‘old man in a hurry’ and thought these people were shortcuts to establishing the party. They weren’t – they were grifters who were only interested in their own power.
Unfortunately then the legacy is the grifters, no quick fix, and Alba flailing about mired in their failure.
2/ Salmond was a divisive figure amongst independence supporters, so in a strange way the party could do better with his successor.
The grifters stopped proper policy development, suppressed debate at conference, and demotivated the activist base.
With proper policies, and the return of (let’s face it, the most active) activisits, Alba could still be successful.
The grifters need to go.
Just so. Alba was never more than a fan club and vanity project. It is finished, and now descending into terminal factionalism and grotesque political fantasy.
We need something new and very different.
Reform Alba and merge with ISP would be good, like Neil I joined out of desperation with the SNP when I realised how off they were back in 2012, thought the loss had woken up Alex. you got to try! the UK election bid was a litmus test to how bent out of shape it had become.
Anyone who believes gender is ideologically determined isn’t just right wing, they are far-right, anti-science and fascist. It’s fine to have your beliefs, but own them.
*Autocorrect changed biologically to ideologically. Regardless, you’re still a transphobic fascist.
oh yes and the world is flat and there isn’t global warming, your denial of biology and scientific reality fit’s you right in to that club. Jeez oh Mr Vertigo. just more libertarian, consumer citizen doggerel from the pro trans lobby, your not really that far from trump your selves.
Indispensable to keep a wary eye on alignments with the far right. Lets be aware of what positions are taken on a range of policies and issues: notably on antiracism and immigration, women’s right to choose, the environment and labour rights (trade unions). Half baked theorising has been far too prevalent and tolerated in the Yes movement, at this time Its horribly dangerous. I hope that the recent initiative by the SNP to hold a conference to bring together elements of a movement against the far right will help to clarify matters. Its crucial in helping to define yet again the kind of independent Scotland to which we aspire
The left have ceded ground to the swivel-eyed right by insisting on submitting to gender ideology.
Given the choice between voting for women’s rights to single sex spaces and against them, most people will vote to protect those rights.
These are fundamental.
Debate on this issue should take place after Scottish Independence, when voters can make their decision as a separate issue from that of independence.
It’s a huge mistake to insist that voters accept the degradation of women’s rights as the price of independence.
It’s a huge disservice to the cause of independence to perpetuate that false equivalence.
“Debate on this issue should take place after Scottish Independence, when voters can make their decision as a separate issue from that of independence.”
I mean, that’s not going to happen, sorry.
I wish a better debate was happening now but it isn’t.
To emphasise Alba’s problem with democracy not one Alba representative has ever been democratically elected.
All Alba elected representatives have been elected on an SNP label then jumped ship without recourse to the electorate. I have been affected by this with a former MP and current MSP and consequently have no respect for them.
They no longer appear to be a serious political party and are degenerating into a self obsessed rabble of egos.
Holyrood 2026 will in all probability be the final nail in the Alba coffin unless they come back to real world.
A thorough political analysis of the mobilisation for the 2014 independence referendum would need to address the emergence of sect-like thinking and behaviour, of which ALBA is a prime example. We need to accept that the independence movement has a problem, of which ALBA is just one manifestation.
At its heart, I think, is a shallow politics based not on principles but on beliefs, which gives rise to a simplistic self-righteousness that brooks no challenge, eschews debate, resorts to personal abuse, and is based in large part on devotion to the great leader. This profoundly anti-democratic take on politics finds expression in the endless succession of wheezes and artful deceptions – from gaming the electoral system, to reliance on abstruse exegesis of sacred texts such as the 1689 Claim of Right – that have been proposed to replace the simple political reality that the people in their majority must be convinced, and decide in a free ballot, on whether or not Scotland should become an independent country.
Our challenge is to inspire people and mobilise a majority alliance so powerful that institutional obstacles to holding a referendum on independence are swept away. Again, it is a mark of political immaturity, and profoundly defeatist to boot, to expect the route to be laid out for us in advance. It wasn’t for South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement. It wasn’t for America’s civil right movement. It wasn’t for Gandhi’s truth force. It wasn’t for the Vietnamese when confronted with French, Japanese, British, and American imperialisms. Why should it be for us? After all, what we seek is self-determination: the clue is in the name. As the Chinese saying goes: the longest journey begins with a single step. Each one of us can take that step now.
Very good comment
Spot on – there are no short cuts to independence.
Rather than doing the hard yards of convincing others in Scotland of benefits of independence in the face of a largely hostile media and intransigent Westminster far too many have taken the easy option of feeding their ego with performative and divisive rhetoric.
If we persuade a large majority of fellow citizens that life would be better and fairer in an independent country then nothing, not even Westminster, can prevent it being achieved.
Could it be that the much sought after route to Independence was under our noses all the time????…….supporting, developing, influencing, joining and turbo charging the SNP!….then engaging, involving and informing our communities of the great initiatives ongoing across Scotland today that could be implemented at scale with the full powers of Independence, whilst listening and responding to the needs of communities today
The whole Trans issue at the moment is a distraction. In time we will work out what society can tolerate.
Once an unmarried mother seen as was a risk to the morals of society. Illegitimate babies were adopted and mothers treated harshly. Homosexuality was a total crime. Illegal and treated by imprisonment and in some countries death.
Now both are main stream.
It is impossible to change sex. It is possible to live in another gender. There are of course many issues to resolve.
The protection of minors. The question of whether a Trans woman has an unfair advantage in sport. Procedures in Prisons.
Safe spaces for those who need them. Most of these issues have ways to resolve them. Inevitably money will have to be spent to do this. But history should teach us that crusading about an issue on either side just hardens attitudes.
They’ll keep splitting and expelling until they end being just one guy in two minds.
One would have to have a heart on stone not to laugh at the antics of this bunch.
McEleny is a proud Trump supporter and is desperate that the invitation of a state visit for Trump go ahead despite the Oval Office meltdown. really where did you pick this up?? your going the same way as other citizen journalists like wings, Scot goes pop, and the like. they’ll be calling you Mike Small hatchet soon. if you can give the direct quotes and his reaction, I might take you seriously mike, not that I’m a supporter of his, but this seems desperate.
I ‘picked this up’ from his twitter feed Stuart. Nothing desperate about this. Here’s a link to his tweet: https://x.com/ChrisMcEleny/status/1895962997534933402
i see that, it doesn’t say what you stated , all it does is say you can’t roll back on a royal invite, given how trump is if he did get ditched by the man with a metal hat he might take Umbridge and slap sanctions on, any excuse with Donald, It doesn’t seem like a direct quote to me. you want to reign it in a bit me thinks.
your right, I miss read it, oops, but not sure you can un do the Donald until 2028. oh well there trying to kick him out.
His feed is littered with support for Trump, which he doesn’t deny. Reigning nothing in. The consequences of these politics are clear and should be owned.
“Gender ideology” is the current catchphrase of the UK’s transphobes, now adopted by the White House transphobes. In the last few years it has pushed past other rallying phrases such as “transactivism”.
The transphobes are plentiful on this comments page, and they nearly all use that phrase “gender ideology”. They mean it to attack or critique the experience of trans people, and to contrast trans lives with what they assert is the biological reality of immutable binary sex.
The biological essentialism which the transphobes assert is simply false. It appeals to people whose understanding of biology never developed beyond the simplified story they were taught in school at around the age of puberty, but the reality is that there are many many variations of intersex, and gender also exists on a spectrum. The complexity and diversity of biological sex is so uncontroversial in science that the transphobes are simply another variant of science-deniers, like those who deny climate science.
It is odd to watch how a significant chunk of Scottish public opinion — and a large mob of angry activisists — have not only got into a lather of science-denial, but are also terrified of gender self-ID. In reality, self-ID has been the law for nearly decade in Ireland, which is Scotland’s closest neighbour. It has been unproblematic in Ireland, but a significant number of Scots have chosen to prefer the hysterical imaginings of the Murdoch press and the hatemongering of a patricular blogger.
But the real headscratcher of it all is their use of that phrase “gender ideology”. It is in fact a term invented a few decades ago by reactionary Catholics in the USA, to group all opponents of the misogynist, patriarchal, homophobic and transphobic ideology and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. “Gender ideology” is a term of these christofascists to articulate their opposition to gender equality, abortion, sexual education, and LGBTQ rights in areas such as marriage, adoption, surrogacy, and reproductive technologies.
By using this phrase “gender ideology”, Scotland’s transphobes are allying themselves not just with Trump, with the christofascist extremists who make Trump look like a liberal. “Gender ideology” is the sworn enemy of the Americans who want to go much further than wrecking the lives of trans people; they want enact most of The Handmaid’s Tale and turn the USA into Gilead. It is amusing as well as frightening to watch the irony of how many Scots who proclaim some form of feminism or support for gay rights have chosen the terminology of Christofascists. This was all part of the rather successful plan drawn up by the religious right in 2017 to split the T from the LGBT. That has now reached the point where the T has been erased from the Stonewall memorial, an uprising which was actually led by trans people.
So it is no great surprise that Ash Regan has been cosying up to Farage and Trump. Having made her name by the old populist tactic of scaremongering against a vulnerable minority, that lean towardsTrumpism was only a matter of time. But please be in no doubt that Trump and Farage are only the moderate frontmen of a much more extreme christofascism, whose terminology has been normalised in Scotland by the Alba fans.
Farage wants reduce the time in which a woman can have an abortion. Yep, Reform cares about woman’s rights !
Hello Claire, some wide of the mark assumptions here. I am a man, (gender activists would describe me as “cis” I suppose, but I am not a cis-man, as there is no such thing). I was born male, became a man when I turned 18, that was sixty years ago exactly, and I’ve been a man ever since. So why is that now an inadequate description of who I am, that I now have to bear an unnecessary prefix “cis”? If that’s not an ideology, what is it? I certainly resent it and the jumped-up activism that promotes it. . My family consists of six – myself, a wife and four daughters – the latter now getting on to what was once called middle age. All those women were until recently, left wing, environmentally concerned. I have kept my socialist philosophies, indeed as I have aged, they have become more and more pronounced. However, I have to tell you all five females in my family have become strongly antipathetic to the Greens and left-wing generally because of their pushing this ideology in their political debate. They have told me they’ll never vote Green again. This may be a bit of an overreaction, but who am I a mere old man to say that? We’ve even had ridiculous riots in NZ related to his. If you don’t recognised the term “gender ideology” perhaps I could suggest the more euphonious “gender agenda”. I am a retired GP, and I’ve noted the ridiculous pointless circumlocutions in the health system by such terms as “chest feeding, owning a uterus, perinatal services, birthing people etc”. You may not resent this, but countless people do. I’ve seen the absurd intellectual contortions made by politicians when asked “what is a woman”, to avoid stating the obvious, the unarguable fact, ” a woman is the adult female of the species Homo sapiens” (As for instance mare, bitch, hen, pen, ewe etc are adult females of countless other species) I have treated a number of trans-women over the years, and I’d be very surprised and distressed if I were to learn that any one of them had been treated with less than the same respect I treat any other patient. So as a committed socialist and a medical professional with personal experience of regular contact with trans people, I really resent the slur that being anti-trans agenda is being phobic to any trans person. Being critical of an agenda like yours is not transphobia, you are wrong to make that statement and it’s no wonder you get a lot of “push back” as here for instance.
Let’s explore a bit further. You say there’s an angry mob of anti-trans people guilty of science denial – what does that mean? The science is totally straightforward, I have enunciated this above. Maybe I’ll have to restate it. A trans woman (i.e a man claiming to actually be woman and wanting to be treated as a woman – these are two fundamentally different things, and it’s the conflation of these two that is causing so much bother) is not a woman. She can never be so. A woman is not just her genetic make up or her physiology, but her growing up as a girl, her friendships and relationships to her peers, to her parents, her menstruation and physical development, her way of thinking. No man can ever replicate that. It is a proven fact that the brains of women and men are subtly different, so it follows that it is the case that no man even has the brain to ever become a woman!! There are serious issues in regard to trans-women competing in women’s reserved competitive sport. This should not be allowed, such trans women are basically cheating. I won’t go on, because this is a political forum, but your opinion is your own, fine, but it needs to be challenged here by those that don’t share it.
I”ll repeat this point, the trans-gender agenda is seriously disadvantaging left wing and green politics, including the SNP as has been noted and I have given you the example of the five women I know the best. Blaming those that resist this nonsensical agenda, a cult really, are not all rabid fascistic racists or transphobe, but many ordinary men and women who really resent, like I do, the mischievous labels you are constructing around our otherwise ordinary existence and self-regard. We resent the shrillness of it, and the cancel culture you have engendered. It is unarguably diminishing the meaning of womanhood. To have fought for so long for their own honoured place in society, it is not surprising many are bridling at the need to admit transwomen to their domain. Something like one woman in four or five have at sometime been assaulted, physically or sexually, by a man or men in their lifetime, A threatening maleness to many women is not entirely disguised by a professed female persona. And I have to add, when you consider the number of truly existential problems facing Scotland, the UK, and humanity generally, to be having this debate about a tiny minority of the sometimes disadvantaged human population is truly a first-world peripheral agenda. Legislation to deal to this disadvantage has long been in place. To loose significant political support because of an agenda, is that worth it? Don’t push it so hard and stop being so angry with those that disagree with you. . I have just had a re-read of your posting, your language is exaggerated to the point of ridicule, “Christofascists” indeed, your apparent conflation of intersex, a rare pathological medical condition with gender, a normal binary trait, though coloured by psychosocial considerations. is pretty scientifically dubious. The shrillness and immutability of your opinion does this debate no credit whatsoever. And perhaps what your posting proves above all is to treat the USA as a seriously aberrant nation, keep it culturally and politically arms length, and certainly no “special relationship” – though Trump’s doing his best to sever that; we should be grateful for that, at any rate. I often think it’s a pity the Dutch didn’t continue to settle the USA, then at least then we wouldn’t have the problem we have by having to share the same language.
Hear Hear!
John. I am of similar age to yourself, and am a white male heterosexual who has never had a scintilla of doubt about my sexuality or gender. My analysis is that gender is only a fashion statement, and both sides of this scandalous debate take it all far too seriously. “Scandalous” because the ice caps are melting, the Amazon is on fire, the sea levels are rising – and I am supposed to care what toilet people use?
I am very sympathetic about anyone who has a medical problem, goodness at my age I am collecting a few, but compared to Ukraine or Gaza? We are being gas-lit by both sides of the debate.
The science is simple, only 99.97% of us are either XY or XX – so we know that sex is not binary. So, can we all just settle down?
Quite right. That’s exactly how I feel about this – though as a white female heterosexual. I just wish more folk like you would tell the obsessives on “both sides” to shut up, or as you more politely put it, to “settle down” and then get exercised about the things that really matter at the moment in this country and this world.
If you think that science would say that that 0.03% makes sex (or anything for that matter) not binary you don’t know how science works. The 0.03% are anomalies of a system that works because it is binary. That is how the logic of science works.
And what are those 0.03%? Is the suggestion that they are the trans people and so they all have chromosomes that are not XY or XX and explains ‘trans’? That would be provable but it won’t be because no-one is seriously saying that, though exactly what they are really saying about the false sex is not binary claim I do not know. Just trying to muddy the waters / put up a smoke screen seems to be the answer.
So people talking non-scientific stuff like this to try and get people to pipe down will fail because it is false. People will not pipe down and you are wasting your breath trying to get people to believe something false in order to. In fact it has the opposite effect as it riles folk to be told they have to accept a lie so more important things can be addressed and that is no basis for moving forward.
@Niemand, and what has Big Pollution got to gain? Or avoid (like class-action lawsuits)? What does the science actually say? And what about the fish etc?
https://chemtrust.org/endocrine-system/
#WeNeedToTalkAboutBlinky
I think it really does not help to assert as scientific fact the proposition that the science is simple. Nothing in this debate is simple; much that is said, however, is simplistic.
What can be said, I think, is that many countries have adopted legislation on self-Id similar to that proposed for Scotland, without it being a problem.
The Creative Officer was round for a look at the books, stuck wee red stickers on the spines of all those to be incinerated. Your theme, he says, shall be: A Celebration of British Occupation. Much the same as what you’ve been doing, except exactly the opposite. Otherwise, nay funding!
Help ma Boab!
Boab tends tae help himsel
The huis wis that cauld
the mice hud moved next door.
I missed the wee mice
tearing across the floor.
The toun wis that windy
the kirk roof blew awa.
I skipped the Sunday service
as did auld Ma & Pa.
The coonsil acted swiftly,
pit oan a Gaelic week.
It said so in the paper,
in total English speak.
Auld Swicky stood up,
gien the usual spiel
– The best thing aboot Scotland,
The sheer amount ae deils!
Lose the “far-right” labelling.