If you mention the DM again i'll win tonights DS BS cliche bingo.

The Seps still cannot grasp the mere fact that independence means out of the EU with no re entry, the german taxpayer has enough to deal with as it it without another non contributor coming to the table.

Better than the liar and life failure that is sturgeon, what exactly has that failure done for those who suffer depravation and in need within her own constituency, the answer is sweet FA, even in the USA we have heard about her humiliating grand tour of europe where she was fobbed off with junior ministers and mandarins seeking support for scotland to remain in the eu.

And she was clearly told independence means no EU and Brexit means no EU, she is a bigger embarrassment than that half finished bit of shite on Calton Hill in edinburgh.

There is no "no big obstacle" to an independent Scotland joining the EU before Brexit, former Prime Minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt has said. -

http://stv.tv/news/politics/1358976-...nd-joining-eu/

Quite by coincidence Mr Verhofstadt is also the EU's choice to lead their Brexit negotiations.

Now who to believe? It's a tricky one

Yes there is in fact two of them Spain and France, nations still have considerable clout when it comes to the EU and Spain will never ever accept Scotland into the EU because of the catalonian problem.

Any way i think scotland needs to sort out its domestic problems before trying to be a big man in europe.

I'll go with the opinion of Mr Verhofstadt who actually knows about these things. Thanks all the same.

He doesn't know about these things, he is a life failure from a country thats going to split hopefully very soon,, ill go with the informed comments from Spanish political leaders who have said they would veto Scotland.

A former PM of Belgium who has just been appointed to lead the EU's negotiations on Brexit.....A failure? Wow, you must have a pretty impressive CV or certainly a high opinion of yourself and what constitutes success.

Quite interesting though that you hope Belgium splits very soon. I would have thought you would be all against these "Seps" movements.

And I'm sure you will be able to have recent post-Brexit quotes from these "Spanish political leaders who have said they would veto Scotland" to back up your claims. If not, it might appear you are just having an intemperate outburst about those irksome Scottish nationalists.

This article is about moving on from Article 49 to Article 50

https://www.commonspace.scot/article...lands-place-eu

"To cut a long story short, Rajoy - or more likely his successor considering the weakness of his minority government in Spain - would have to find at least seven other member states to support him should he want to scupper a Brexit agreement just because it permitted Scotland to be part of the EU."

But the SNp have only polling to go on, otherwise they initiate another Referendum and Scotland votes to remain. This would leave them purposeless for decades.

Of course people can change their minds but theres little indication that Scots are doing so in large enough numbers to warrant another Referendum.

The trouble with you Nats is that you can't accept a Democratic decision made 2 years ago and don't want to wait until the next Parliament to gauge the feeling in the population for another. Thats why you go on about a pro independence parliament as opposed to a pro union population.

I don't think they are on a downward trend but I do suspect they have reached Peak.

Im not sure where they will get even more voters from. the die hard Labour voters won't want to switch because the SNP is essentially a Centre right Party. Tory voters may like SNP policies but don't want Scotland to leave the UK.

The vast majority of folk don't actually join parties and the ones that do are more single minded which causes a problem for the SNP surge as they will want something for their membership and that something will be more left wing policies and another indyref soon.

The trouble is the SNP have been all things to all folk recently but are essentially still the same right wing thinkers with a few social policies bolted on, mainly to benefit the middle classes.

What happens when the poorest in our society realise that they have been conned out of their vote?

Essentially I think the SNP vote will now level off and probably enter a decline by the next UK election, not a huge slump but enough for them to lose a good few MPs.

I only read this far on the post but the claim that the is SNP is centre right is a nonsense. Polling has shown those still voting labour are significantly more to the right than SNP voters. Many of the left wing former Labour voters have long moved to other parties, be it the SNP, Greens or one of the socialist parities.

The claim that the SNP is centre right just does not hold. Yes often their policies are not going to make huge transformational changes but the reality is the power available to them only allows them to make small changes, often mitigating the effect of Westminster policies. Realistically their policies tend to range from centre left to centre. The claim they are a party of the centre right is dishonest but most of all an insult to the voters, as if they are idiots taken in a by a centre right party. Essentially the SNP are a party at the centre of Scottish politics and by comparison, at the centre left of UK politics.

I think the SNP have done well to maintain popularity for so long partly, I assume, partly at least due to Labour's total indifference to their supporters?

However, as in all things people tire of political parties over time so it's possible their dominance will slowly decline.

Everyone's favourite fake reverend from Somerset has been suspended from twitter after he encouraged his followers to hurl abuse at an Express journalist. What a shame...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/p...PJe#.sjGlmepok

I think many SNP supporters realise they're not a centre left party, but see the SNP as way of achieving their goal of independence.

I think the majority of voters accept the SNP is a centre left party. The only ones who dispute that seems to be a minority of anti-SNP zealots.

Depends on whether you judge the SNP on what they do, rather than what they say... how are they getting on with scrapping the unjust council tax.

They've asked the wealthiest the to pay more and lessened the burden on lower earners. Not far enough for me but the centre right parties were very unhappy about. They now attack Scotland under the SNP for being the most highly taxed part of the U.K..

So the council tax wasn't unjust and needed scrapping, instead just needed a slight tweak. The new approach lifted from the Tory's proposal, rather than their own review.

BIB - Apart from the above, they haven't increased taxes and actually higher rate taxpayers will see their income tax bill go down this year.

The Tories have condemned their council tax policies because they feel they place too much of a burden on the wealthy. The similarity in policies is that they both proposed council tax reform. I do support a council tax replacement but I do not accept that the SNP and Tories are on the same page with regard to taxation. To be clear the Tories fear that under the SNP higher earners in Scotland will pay more tax than higher earners in the rest of the U.K. Do you think they're wrong?

The council tax proposals were very similar, both suggested an increase to the upper bands and protection for the lower bands.

As often happens in politics, both sides talk as if they're offering something very different, whilst actually they're in a very similar place. I said this before the last Scottish elections, but if it wasn't for their stance on the constitutional issue, I could vote SNP.

So despite your constant posting on the incompetence of the SNP for years now it turns out you'd actually vote for them if it wasn't for the tricky issue of indpendence. Yeah right!

Apologies for confusing you with data, but the latest poll puts SNP on 52%, Tories 22, Labour 11, LD 6, SGP 5 and UKIP 3%. Table 4. Small sample of 177, so numbers could be out slightly, but not much.

https://www.icmunlimited.com/wp-cont...rdian_poll.pdf

He reminds me of that sicko Martin Shkreli he who bought the rights to a drug called Daraprim and ramped up the cost, a total loon who was hurling abuse in New York at Clinton.

He believed his wings could fly but he got them clipped by Twitter.

Don't - San Fran gets her political info from OK! magazine.