IT is outrageous that investigation on this has to be constantly demanded by the SNP. It should be a natural course. The minute it is known that Tories have been found to be funded by dark money, an investigation should immediately be triggered as a safeguard of our democracy. It should not be a case that a political party can break the law if the other parties are not watching close enough. That is rubbish and that does not give any confidence whatsoever to the electorate in the systems that this, allegedly democratic union, has to protect democracy.

I think it is fantastically absurd that the Electoral Commission and any other “legal” entities simply considers satisfactory the claims of the Tories that “they were funded legally”, when one of the specific requirements by the Electoral commission is that they must know the origin of the money they are being funded with. None of those funded with CRC or SUAT can actually tell us exactly where that money comes from. CRC or SUAT are only facades, they are not “the origin” of that money. So how do we know that this is not some structure to laundering money? How do we know that that money is not being donated by foreign individuals attempting to tamper with our democratic processes and therefore must be interpreted as “bribes” by foreign interests? And how on earth can be satisfactory in any way or form for these Tory MPs, MSPs and even the PM to say that the can guarantee that they have been legally funded when they are completely unable to tell us exactly where that money comes from, which is a requirement stipulated by the Electoral Commission for the funding to be considered appropriate?

EXPLAINED: What is the Scottish Tory 'dark money' scandal?

The Leave campaign has been found to be in breach of electoral law, not only for overspending but also for deliberately attempting to bypass the system by colluding with other organisations to breach that limit. If that was not enough, there are sufficient claims around that foreign individuals and possibly foreign money have been involved in the Leave campaign, which is also in breach of electoral law.

Then we have the matter of Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ abusing social media to use targeted marketing, which involves accessing personal information of people that did not give consent for that and was not warned that this was happening.

The reality is the Leave campaign stinks no matter what corner you choose to lift up. It is absolutely astonishing and says a lot of how little this Union thinks of democracy when Brexit is not stopped right on its tracks, as the vote was achieved under very dodgy circumstances and with unprecedentedly dubious methods. So I have to ask, what powers that be in the higher echelons of the British establishment are really pushing for Brexit? Because from where I am standing there is not justification for it.

And where is Ruth Davidson? How can this woman call herself a “leader” when she does not even have the balls to come out from her hiding hole and do her “day job”, which is currently answer questions to the electorate as to how on earth under her nose, Scottish Tories have been funded by dark money whose origin they don’t know and therefore potentially breaching electoral law?
Maria Carnero
via the national.scot

THERESA May, is on record as having said No to indyref2. She is likely to repeat that refusal if our First Minister – with the all the authority of the democratically elected Scottish Government – proposes an indyref2 in the foreseeable future. A court ruling has determined that a belief in Scottish independence is now protected in law. It is bitterly ironic that the expression of such belief in a referendum is likely to be declared “illegal” by the UK Government.
Billy Scobie
Alexandria

READ MORE: Scots Tories under SNP pressure to reveal truth on ‘dark money’

A FRIEND of mine who is right of centre politically – i.e. he will not entertain the Labour party – living in the English Midlands wrote to me: “I can assure you that I have no desire for Boris to be prime minister and I don’t think he will be. If the choice was between the clown Boris (who is totally out of his depth.) and the insensitive idiot Corbyn (who is totally out of his depth) any election would be a disaster whatever the result. Such a situation would result in an increase in votes for other parties. An SNP candidate standing for election in Surrey might even garner a substantial number of votes!”

Perhaps we should be prepared to crowd-fund SNP candidates in some English constituencies. They would of course take the position that since the English media tell them that England pays to provide Scotland with a subsidised life-style, by electing an SNP MP they can remove this burden from England. It would also make for that election the SNP a UK party and we could expect to see proper coverage on political programmes, with Nicola Sturgeon and or Ian Blackford appearing more than Nigel Farage.
Robert Mitchell
Stirling