Stewart McDonald MP for Glasgow South speaks for the SNP on Scottish Independence

McDonald and many of his SNP MP/MSP colleagues are openly hostile to the movement they purport to represent. When support for Scottish independence rises they publicly argue against holding a second referendum claiming to do so before the SNP had “renewed its case” for seceding from the UK would be “the height of irresponsibility”. Adding insult to injury McDonald himself launched an extraordinarily vicious broadside against ‘cybernats’ – Scottish independence supporters on social media – accusing them of being “creepy” and “vile”, “spreading poison and cynicism”, and behaving like “obnoxious thugs”. Reporting on his comments, Conservative MSP Adam Tomkins, in a Glasgow Herald article heartily endorsed McDonald’s stance.

Stewart McDonald SNP MP – his associates within the SNP and wider afield and their links to the Integrity Initiative and British Secret Services

McDonald MP for Glasgow South is Westminster’s most enthusiastic Russia-basher. His anti-Russia campaigning is quite remarkable. Until 2018, he showed little or no interest in the country at all, but, following an SNP Leadership supported (undeclared to Westminster) fully funded jolly to Ukraine with his close friend and personal adviser Neal Stewart and fellow SNP MPs Douglas Chapman and Chris Law to reassure the Ukraine the SNP was not pro-Russian he was transformed into an ardent opponent of Moscow and a passionate supporter of the British establishment position on foreign policy.

For an elected representative of the Scottish National Party (SNP) to place such faith in the commitment of British intelligence agencies to truth and the defense of democracy is odd to say the least, given the party and the Scottish independence movement more widely have been subject to widespread surveillance, infiltration and disruption by British spooks throughout its existence.

McDonald’s fixation on “disinformation” may have overseas origins. In February 2020, he took an all-expenses-paid seven-day trip to Washington, DC to attend a conference on “combating disinformation online” convened by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a leading globalist think tank. Not long after, he wrote a fiery article for the Times, alleging that Russia was “infecting the planet with disinformation,” calling for an “international coalition” to “defeat the virus.” Russophobic rhetoric is also rife on McDonald’s Twitter account – where he frequently posts about the country, in the process amplifying and promoting the writings and rantings of individuals intimately involved in the secretive “Integrity Initiative” organisation.

https://www.rt.com/russia/519804-mcdonald-spy-foreign-propaganda/

A bombshell publication revealing all that is unsettling with the UK’s media disinformation -http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/briefing-note-on-the-integrity-initiative#offices-and-team

The Integrity Initiative and the Institute for Statecraft

This is a covert UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office military intelligence operation which maintains clandestine networks of journalists, academics and military and intelligence operatives across the world – dubbed “clusters” – which spread pro-Western, anti-Russian propaganda.

McDonald’s very close friend Neal Stewart has given secret briefings at the offices of its pseudo – parent ‘charity’, the shadowy “Institute for Statecraft” which established its headquarters in the Fife constituency of the then SNP, MP, Stephen Gethin who maintains very close links with a number of highly placed secret service individuals and the John Smith Institute at Glasgow University and the Integrity Initiative.

MI5 operative – Euan Grant a member of the Integrity Initiative’s, Inner Core “attended the Neal Stewart event” at Two Temple Place, the secret London offices of the Institute for Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative’s shadowy parent organisation. Grant, worked for many years under the direction of retired MI5 Director General Andrew Parker. Read: https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Euan_Grant

Another associate is self-styled “Dr.” Jennifer Jones – who in August 2018 falsely accused a large number of online independence supporters of being “bots” She allegedly met with representatives of “Integrity Initiative”, which she described as “super interesting.” Full coverage of the exposure of a British Secret Service attack on Scottish nationalist campaigners here: https://wingsoverscotland.com/a-sad-sad-robot-all-alone/

Shell companies

The Ukraine is the most common abuser of Scottish Limited Partnership’s (SLPs), used for asset protection but also for criminal activities. The partnerships are heavily promoted in Ukraine as a way to secretly move substantial amounts of fraudulently gained money out of the country. $7 billion out of the $20 billion in the, Laundromat‟ case was routed through Scottish SLP’s.

The Ukraine also exported huge amounts of munitions to the Middle East at a time of conflicts using an SLP company based in Scotland. SLP’s are also used to
export coal from Donbass. Russian oligarchs purchase Donetsk coal. Move it to Rostov then send it to Turkey under the name of an SLP registered in Scotland.

SLPs were also used to break the UN Crimea blockade. A council house in Inverness was the address of the “owner” of a Russian ship that had run out of money in a Turkish harbour.

The revelations of the “Ferret” make the presence of the Secret Services in Scotland (The John Smith Foundation) and the SNP politicians visit to the Ukraine more interesting to the political observer. Full story: https://theferret.scot/edinburgh-offices-linked-secretive-partnerships/

Resilience Scotland – The SNP’s Secret army

In May 2020, McDonald outlined plans for a “civilian army” which would be “deployed” at times of national crisis. a development fully in harmony with the aspirations of “Statecraft” since it advocates a number of policies instilling a military ethos at every level of Scottish society. Conversely, the scheme met with widespread opposition from grassroots Scottish Independence supporters.

McDonald acknowledged his proposals were not universally popular but they were a necessary response to proposals announced by the Modern Deterrence Project (MDP) of the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank with close ties to the UK national security establishment.

MDP chief Elisabeth Braw – former “non-resident senior fellow” at the ultra right wing think tank the “Atlantic Council” – reportedly liaised directly with McDonald on the plans further undermining his denials of ties with Integrity Initiative, given she is named as part of the organization’s North American “cluster.”

The SNP MP would have every reason to repudiate a relationship with Integrity Initiative, given its clear hostility to the values of the very movement he supposedly represents. In March 2018, the organization solicited a confidential briefing on the SNP’s internal dynamics and nationalist figures, groups and factions from prominent Scottish journalist David Leask. Referring to independence movements “separatist loons,” Leask noted “SNP going to Ukraine – to reassure allies they are not pro-Russian.”

Whatever the truth of the matter, three years earlier, Leask dismissed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s suggestion that independence supporters were “right to be paranoid” about MI5 interference in the 2014 independence referendum as a deranged conspiracy theory. But his views were far from fringe during the vote itself. In all, 26 percent of Scots believed MI5 was meddling in the 2014 independence referendum campaign to ensure a “no” vote prevailed.

It’s surprising that the figure wasn’t even higher, given the agency is known to have maintained for many years a dedicated section on independence groups and activists, headed by Stella Rimington, who became MI5 director general in 1992. The significant rise in nationalist sentiment in recent years culminating in the formation of the “John Smith Institute” operating out of Glasgow University suggests it continues to do so.

The Secret Service tightens its grip on Scotland

In 2015, British intelligence agency GCHQ was quietly authorized to eavesdrop on politicians from the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland prompting a plea from the heads of the devolved governments urging Whitehall to protect the privacy of parliamentarians in the three nations. Their entreaties fell on deaf ears.

McDonald, and his associates had no need for concern since legal instructions specifically barred GCHQ from monitoring MPs at Westminster.

In April 2019, Westminster based SNP MP Stephen Gethins – who has since lost his seat – asked then-secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs Alan Duncan what steps were being taken by Whitehall “to tackle the distribution of disinformation in Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States.”

The answer was Open Information Partnership (OIP), which leaked Foreign Office documents exposed as an avowed “disinformation or troll factory” targeted at Russia, run by an organization staffed by individuals with military and intelligence backgrounds in London and Scotland.

See also:

https://caltonjock.com/2021/04/09/i-kid-you-not-nicola-sturgeons-darling-boy-stephen-gethins-is-on-the-board-of-the-john-smith-trust/
https://caltonjock.com/2020/09/24/stephen-gethins-forgot-his-purpose-and-lost-his-seat-at-westminster-now-heading-for-kinross/
https://caltonjock.com/2020/09/24/stephen-gethins-forgot-his-purpose-and-lost-his-seat-at-westminster-now-heading-for-kinross/
https://caltonjock.com/2018/08/30/the-bbc-is-the-most-effective-tool-in-the-secret-services-formidable-armoury-and-it-will-be-a-cold-day-in-hell-before-they-give-it-up/

Many thanks to: Kit Klarenberg, an investigative journalist who reports on the British intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions within and out with the nation.