Are You Awake?

The spectre of a “Woke” dominated SNP Government looms menacingly, enabled through the imposition on constituencies of “right thinking” candidates by a party leadership no longer in touch with reality.

In recent years, the Party has lost focus evidenced by the introduction of controversial policy changes without consultation with or support of a majority of Party members and officials.

The criteria for selection as a candidate of the Party, until now, has been a straightforward process. Individuals were local to their community and possessed a solid record of active campaigning for the cause of independence.

But that changed when Nicola announced her intention to bring in changes to the “Gender Reassignment Act” permitting individuals to “self-declare” their gender.

Currently the law states that those seeking to officially change gender have to live in the preferred gender for two years and be diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a doctor to gain a Gender Recognition Certificate.

Nicola and her supporters were warned that their proposals were toxic and the debate over legal changes would be protracted, divisive and perhaps unsuccessful, but they decided to press on with the change.

As projected the proposals polarized opinion within the Party, many believing a change to “self-declaration” would eliminate women’s sex-protected rights and undermine data which is dependent on knowing if a person is a man or a woman. A number of women’s groups added their voices to the protests.

One Scottish MSP, a committed nationalist not known for rebelling, Joan McAlpine, the chair of Holyrood’s “Culture and External Affairs Committee, spoke publicly about her concerns, and was abused by WOKE campaigners and and threatened with deselection.

In voicing an opinion she stood charged by the WOKEs’ as being a gender-critical trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF). So I must be a TERM. Got to get to grips with this new language!!!

Her committee also feared the inclusion of “non-binary” questions in census forms devaluing the data on a protected characteristic (sex) under the Equality Act.

There was also concern that women’s groups, in receipt of substantial amounts of taxpayers’ money, had dogmatically adopted the WOKE ideology while failing to represent women who disagreed.

This generated long worded denials from Scottish Government funded organisations: “Close the Gap” £225k: “Engender Scotland” £250k and “Equate Scotland”: £350k. New to you? and to me. How many more are there?

She was also attacked by some of her own SNP colleagues. Namely:

Rhiannon Spear, chair of the LGBT education lobby, “Tie” (Time for Inclusive Education).

She accused Joan of “stoking a fire” and “willfully ignoring the advice of service providers who have been working in the industry for decades”.

Michael Gibbons, head of the SNP’s student wing, who said: “There is nothing socialist, brave, or feminist about giving a platform to a TERF under a pretense of debate and discussion. It’s disingenuous and wrong.”

But Joan hit back with her statement:

“They try to shut you up by labelling you and othering you, by using extremist language. This isn’t just about trans people’s rights; they have the same human rights as everyone else and extra protections in the Equality Act and hate legislation, and that’s quite right. This is about women’s rights and how the changes being pushed for impact women.”

Find her on twitter, https://twitter.com/JoanMcAlpine/status/1101251118611525633

public profile campaigning can be a frustrating and lonely pastime

WOKE activists are behind a fast spreading culture of intimidation and self-censorship within the SNP and beyond.

Only last month the contents of private direct mail messages between three female SNP, MSPs, Gillian Martin, Ash Denham and Ruth Maguire was leaked to the public by the WOKE activist and SNP member, Jordan Henderson, (partner of NEC member, Alyn Smith) who summarized their exchange of views to read:

“The First Minister is “out of step” with the views of the SNP group at Holyrood over the impact on women of possible changes to the Gender Recognition Act and she is blind to the fact that the WOKE agenda is a real and dangerous threat to women and feminism”

Henderson added:

“Deeply concerning to see this conversation between SNP elected members claiming the FM is out of step for backing trans rights in Scotland. @theSNP and @NicolaSturgeon must act.”

An SNP source commented:

“This was a private conversation We know that staff can access MSPs’ Twitter accounts, so it will be extremely hurtful for the MSPs’ involved to think that one of their staff has leaked this to Jordan Henderson.

But the fact remains that a majority of SNP, MSPs’ are concerned about the impact of transgender self-identification on women’s rights and this should be able to be raised publicly without abuse. This kind of leak doesn’t help that happen.”

WOKEism is spreading

The policy of removing long standing and other preferred candidates and replacing them with WOKE activists started with the parachuting of the Party’s “Policy Development Convener” and leading “WOKE” supporter, Alyn Smith, (MEP) direct from his office in Brussels to stand as the Party’s 2019 General Election “shoo-in” candidate for a seat in Westminster.

NEC member Smith, spoken of in some circles as a future Party leader was duly elected and set his stall out early on with his appointment of “WOKE” activists to his office, including Cameron Archibald, (from the Bannockburn branch).

If you wish to know more about Archibald check out his twitter posts, “MammothWhale” and “TheStirlingWolf”. He really is a corker!!

The procedures for selecting candidates for the 2021 General Election is now under way and there are reports from Branches of gerrymandering by the NEC who have introduced policy changes removing all powers from Branches demitting the selection and short listing of candidates from Branches to the WOKE supporting NEC.

Comment:

WOKE ideology conflates sex and gender, but they are different. Being born a male or female is a fact of biology. Adopting a masculine or feminine persona is attributable to social conditioning and performance. Sex is data, gender is narrative. If the dangly bits are intact you are a male.