SO it seems that SNP MP Pete Wishart is very upset about folk burning copies of the Treaty of Union (Row after Scottish independence activists burn Act of Union on Bonfire Night, Nov 6). He says “mad and crazy stunts like that turn people off [the independence movement] in droves. It is sinister and there is no democratic debate for burning anything like that.”
What is actually turning people like me off the independence movement are people like Mr Wishart who have spent a political lifetime of more than 20 years in the UK House of Commons and appear to have done very little to advance the case for an independent Scotland. I seem to remember at one time he even expressed a desire to become speaker of the House. Most folk vote for the SNP in the hope that they would settle up with Westminster, not settle down and try and help run the damn place.
READ MORE: Ex-Labour MP slams Keir Starmer for 'patronising' Scots with 'Tory language'
Mr Wishart said publicly in September 2017 that because voters were “weary of constitutional change” there should be no second referendum on Scottish independence for that parliament, but that the SNP should seek a mandate for a new one in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. In October 2017, he told an Institute of Economic Affairs conference that federalism for the UK should be welcomed “as part of that conversation”.
Mr Wishart is no stranger to controversy himself. In December 2014 he labelled No voters “Nawbags”, a characterisation he later said he regretted, admitting he sometimes got things “disastrously wrong” on social media.
In 2016 he was condemned after tweeting that supporters of Tony Blair were “now like an embarrassing incontinent old relative who you might go and visit occasionally.” Labour MSP Neil Findlay said the remark was “totally unacceptable for an elected MP to mock elderly people in care homes or patients suffering the misery of incontinence” and Wishart deleted the tweet.
READ MORE: 'Angry and disenfranchised' teens behind Bonfire Night chaos need support, community says
In 2017 he tweeted a picture of a mock ballot paper that described pro-Union candidates as “wank”, “wanker”, and “absolute total wanks”. The Scottish Conservatives said the tweet was “staggering” and called for the SNP whip to be removed from him.
In the coming winter, many of Scotland’s bairns will not have enough to eat. Their homes will be cold and miserable, unlike Mr Wishart’s. I only wish he could get a wee bit more upset about those facts and less about some folk burning a sheet of paper.
John Baird
Largs
WISHART’S a phoney. This career politician would likely try for an English seat in the event of indy!
When I was on Twitter, he seemed to spend most of his time being snide and blocking any indy supporters who had the temerity to disagree with him.
The demeaning sight of him trying to become Speaker should’ve seen him turfed out of the SNP.
Makes my blood boil when I see REAL talent like Joanna Cherry “ex-communicated” by the Sturgeon wing whilst this imposter retains her full support.
David Craig
via thenational.scot
I THINK putting effigies of Catholics on bonfires is just a wee bit more extreme than burning photocopies of a treaty that people never agreed to.
And it is England’s government setting the Treaty of Union on fire by saying Scotland is a colony and we can’t freely vote for indy. That makes the treaty null and void. They are metaphorically burning it.
Dr Ross Anderson
via thenational.scot
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