I dread the damage that Humza Yousaf may do in the
time that he will be First Minister. It will be more of the same that we have had
from Nicola Sturgeon for the past years. We can expect the coalition with the
Scottish Greens to continue. Scotland will stagnate. Worst of all there will
the same fundamental dishonesty.
The SNP is corrupt. It has been run like a secret
society without transparency with a small inner circle controlling everything
and everyone else being told what to do.
There is I think a giant festering secret right at the
heart the SNP. It has brought down Sturgeon. It has brought down Murrell. It
has brought down Liz Lloyd and John Swinney. It has brought down Murray Foote.
But we don’t really know what it is. It may be Alex Salmond bringing down the
heads of the five families. But we don’t know.
Humza Yousaf has been elected to keep a lid on the
whole thing. This is part of his dishonesty. The other part I strongly suspect
is the fundamental contradiction of the man. He is a devout Muslim who campaigns
for things that are contrary to mainstream Islam. He could tell us that he is a
liberal Muslim, or that there are parts of the Quran that he finds problematic,
but he doesn’t. Instead, we are left to wonder what he really believes.
This was the contrast with Kate Forbes. She was the
first politician I can remember who told the truth about what she believes. Here
I stand, I can do no other said Forbes as she nailed her manifesto to the
Church door. Whether you agree with her or not it was heroic, just as it was
heroic when Martin Luther told the truth no matter the consequences.
As a Pro UK writer, I was overjoyed when I heard that
Yousaf had won the leadership. Not merely because I thought he would do a poor
job as First Minister, but because I thought Kate Forbes just might do a great
job. She might just reach out to people like me who have always opposed the SNP
and independence.
If she had succeeded in making Scotland more prosperous
by ditching the Greens, lowering taxes where possible and encouraging business,
I might have been tempted to support what she was trying to do.
If she had said independence is a long-term project
that needs Scotland to cease being dependent on the UK prior to leaving it, I
would have thought that is the way to do it if you are going to do it at all.
I’m Pro UK but I’m not a dogmatist. If Forbes could
have provided a route to independence that showed we would be more prosperous, she
would have done what neither Salmond nor Sturgeon could do. I probably would still
prefer staying in the UK, but I would respect her argument.
But this is where my joy at Humza Yousaf’s victory is
tinged with regret. He won’t make Scotland better and less divided. He won’t do
anything to solve the problems we have with unemployment, health and education.
Support for the SNP and Scottish independence will doubtless fall under Yousaf.
That is a prize worth having. But we live here. A bigger prize still is a
Scotland that is gradually improving.
Perhaps there is a chance of that. If support for the
SNP and Scottish independence falls far enough, we might get a chance to vote
on Left Right issues rather than the constitution.
In a year or so there will be a General Election if
the SNP does very badly. That might be the last of Yousaf, but it might also make
it obvious to everyone that independence won’t be happening for at least twenty
or thirty years. At this point people like Kate Forbes, Anas Sarwar and Douglas
Ross might just begin to cooperate with each other to make Scotland more prosperous
without particularly thinking whether it makes independence more or less
likely.
But I really don’t think we are going to get anywhere
until someone gets to the bottom of the cesspit and finds whatever is rotting there.
Only then can we move forward.
The British Government should appoint a Public Inquiry
to investigate everything that has gone on since the SNP came to power in 2007.
It should have the power to compel testimony under oath and should punish perjury
with contempt of court and jail time.
We need to know how it is that the Scottish Civil
Servants paid for by the British state became allies of the SNP in its attempt
to destroy the British state.
We need a detailed investigation of Alex Salmond’s behaviour
while he was First Minister in Bute House. Witnesses can be anonymous if necessary.
We need to know what other members of the SNP including Sturgeon and Murrell knew
about this behaviour in 2014.
We need to know why allegations against Alex Salmond
relating to 2014 were investigated and eventually went to court in 2020. Who
authorized the investigation of these allegations so many years after the
events.
We need to know about the SNP’s financial affairs by
means of a forensic accountant with full access to all SNP accounts. We need to
know whether foreign powers hostile to the UK have had contact with the SNP and
if they have funded the SNP.
Because this won’t do. We have no sensible explanation
for the sudden departure of Sturgeon, Lloyd, Foote, Swinney and Murrell. It was
unimaginable that these five would go even one day prior to Sturgeon telling us
that she was going.
We then have a campaign for a successor, which has
frankly smelled of the rotting thing at the bottom of the cesspit. No one knew
how many SNP members there were who could vote and the whole process has been
less than transparent. There are already whispers that the result might have
been rigged.
Britain is not some sort of third world dictatorship
that runs on corruption. But the Northern half or what used to be called North
Britain is being hindered because SNP voters don’t care how corrupt or useless
the SNP is only that we should be free from South Britain.
I have been mocking the SNP in a series of articles
ever more outlandish than the last, but the pity of it is that each piece of
outlandishness is easily identified and sometimes even seems plausible.
We are offered more of the same with Humza Yousaf.
Keep a lid on it all. Don’t tell anyone anything. Forbes just might have tried
to uncover some it, might even have tried to clean some of it up.
But we still need a cleaner. We haven’t even begun to
look at the dirt swept under the carpet. Find a police force that is not
controlled by the SNP. Find a judge with the power to investigate who cannot be
threatened by the SNP. Build enough jails to punish all those who made Scotland
dirty and corrupt. Do it. Do it now.
