ScotSquid

Today's performance really was a throwback to the Pressley era. We've been badly let down by Houston's recruitment policy stretching as far as half a tank of petrol get you (return). This was all very predictable in the summer. Countless of us said he'd gone for quantity rather than quality. We are a club completely without ambition or direction. Even the attempts to be a Championship youngster shop window selling club is fucked. That well has run dry for a while. I'd bite your hands off for Hughes' return. I was happy when he left as I thought we could do better. How wrong I was. But he only won the league due to the board gambling on doing so by giving him the biggest budget in the league for a season. We'll need to do that again to go up. Doubt there's any appetite to do do. We'll bumble along hunting a playoff spot until someone ponies up the cash to have a go. Houston has to go though. Squad is awful.

The ball isn't in Westminster's court at all. Whatever happens in the Brexit negotiations, there won't be an indyref. I said that months ago. Others on this thread and others said , after the Leave vote, that there would definitely be a second indyref in this Parliament. I explained why they were wrong. And why the Leave vote was an utter disaster for Scottish independence. Indyref isn't still on the table because it was never on the table to begin with. It's gone for many years. I'm very much enjoying the rewriting of history though. And the presence that the Nationalist movement isn't seeking a new referendum. No siree. Perish the thought. Must have imagined all of the National's 'Lets get the gang together again' tubthumping, and the Summer of Independence was it? The facts are that the post-Leave climate is brutal for separation. The polls show no good signs for it. The GERS figures were horrific. And the UK is by a huge amount Scotland's critical export market. Sturgeon now has to pray that Brexit is Featherlight. The more difficult it is, the worse things get for her. She's in an utter c**t of a position here.

And so the climbdown begins. As many of us already knew, there won't be an indyref2 this decade. Probably not in the next Parliament either. Will be an interesting sell to the faithful, as the dawning realisation hits them that they aren't going to get another referendum in a very long time.

Season's gone marginally better than I thought in the summer, after the obviously horrific transfer dealings. It's a shame Houston and the board made such a c**t of the summer given Hibs have been much shiter than expected and the league was very winnable with some investment. Just need to try and cling on to the playoffs over the next few months even though we have zero chance of progressing through them. Think it will end up going to the last game or two with 3 teams competing for 3rd and 4th. Hibs and Dundee U will go up this season with some dross coming down. Next summer better see a completely different approach to the squad. Shite like Craigen and Rankin filling jerseys.

It's interesting how those with an agenda have spun this that he's literally going to have deportation squads patrolling the streets looking for brown people. And yes, Obama deported more people than any US President in history. Something that's strangely forgotten in the crocodile tears and protests.

I don't think any Scottish party, or anyone, should ever rule out Scottish Independence. That's as stupid a position as the 'Indy at any cost' morons in the SNP. Ad Lib's contention here seems sensible. Post Brexit the LDs should always consider whether being part of the British union in preference to the EU is preferable for Scotland. That wasn't a consideration before but it obviously is now. I think at the moment it quite clearly is the former, but that may change in time. If nothing else having a more neutral stance on independence might allow the LDs to hoover up the disaffected SNP vote once they don't deliver a referendum.

I think you need to stay off the crazy SJW juice. Trump is an idiot, but this scaremongering is helping no one, and is why we have moron snowflakes 'literally' shaking. What politicians say and do are vastly different things. Let's look back in 2 years time and see where we are, and how many 'millions' have been deported.

Yeah its interesting isn't it? In all the purse clutching from the Joanna Cherry types about this unacceptable lack of clarity for EU nationals over Brexit no one in the media has asked the SNP about their hypocrisy. Christian Allard, who may be the stupidest SNP politician not McGarry and Mason, was destroyed on Twitter over these disgusting double standards from Sturgeon. Quite despicable for her to use our EU citizen friends and neighbours as bargaining chips. No wonder so many voted No in 2014.

No she didn't 'tell the truth'. She attempted to use EU nationals rights to remain post secession as a bargaining chip to get a better deal from the EU. Exactly what May has been accused of. She could easily have said 'Regardless of our negotiations with the EU let me assure those EU nationals in Scotland that they will unquestionably have the legal rights to remain here and one of our first acts as a new government will be to enact that' Of course she didn't want to do that, and reassure those 160,000 people, because they were a handy card up the sleeve to use against the EU. This is actually sensible politics, although distressing for those people to have that uncertainty, but it's breathtaking hypocrisy even by SNP goon standards to see them attempt to take the moral high ground on this post Brexit, when Sturgeon did exactly the same if not worse, given May hasn't threatened EU residents with losing the right to stay, in 2014.

It's really not that difficult, even for a moron like you. Sturgeon used EU nationals as bargaining chips in 2014, by threatening their right to stay in a post Indy Scotland if she didn't get what she wanted on membership.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/sturgeon-warns-europeans-could-lose-right-to-stay-1-3475453

Yes, that would be true. It would also make newScot an international pariah economically. UDI isn't an option the SNP would consider even if an Indyref was denied by Westminster. In fact, I think they'd be delighted if that happened. No indyref while making it look like you want one is ideal

Birmingham and Birmingham minus 1. Please don't ever sack Stubbs Rotherham. Free money every week.

Just leave these here..

What he actually said is that there is no big obstacle for a newly Indy Scotland to join the EU. And opined that should we vote for Indy this new membership could be pushed through pre Brexit. This is hardly news. He absolutely did not say that Scotland could do this whilst remaining part of the UK or that Scotland would not need to apply to the EU as a new member with associated requirements

He has no power to actually make that claim a reality.

I think this is a fair enough position to be honest. It's perfectly reasonable for the SNP to choose to go down this route based on the manifesto they presented.

My word.. quite the claim

Quite. If iScotland came about pre proper Brexit, the UK membership would still be in place. As was the case in 2014 iScot would be applying as a new member. If iScotland comes about after full Brexit then the UK will already have left the EU, Scotland included. iScot will again be an applicant state. This isn't difficult

The problem here of course is that Remain voters didn't do so on the basis that the EU was more important than the UK. A substantial number of 'Remain voters will vote No in any Scottish indyref. For many of the same reasons we voted Remain ironically. The internal UK market is much more important to Scotland economically than the EU market. This is why the SNP don't actually want an Indyref vote . I see today they have tried laughably to pretend they can have it both ways and be in the EU whilst retaining the UK single market. They are in a mess of an economic position here.

It's posturing. An attempt to put pressure on May. Who predictably has reminded the SNP today about the prospect of an Indyref being blocked by WM. Similar to Sturgeon, of course not actually saying that this would happen. It's all brinksmanship. the SNP know it's far too early for another ref but can't say that. They want to be talked down from the ledge. They won't jump

I don't believe there will be an independence referendum in 2018.

The problem the SNP face here is the exact same they faced the day after Brexit. Brexit was a disaster for Scottish Independence. For Scotland to flourish in the short to medium term as an independent entity it had to do so with an rUK still part of the EU. Given the preponderance of Scottish trade with rUK. If Brexit terms are onerous, Scotland, so dependent on the UK export market, is hugely disadvantaged. Similarly any reduction in UK consumer spending power and downturn in the UK economy affects Scotland very detrimentally . The GERS figures show the scale of problems Scotland would face even in the current climate. Indyref2 really relies on the heart ruling the head, and the social and cultural desire to remain within the EU, even if it's detrimental financially to Scotland in the short term to tear ourselves from the internal market of the UK. That's highly optimistic. Today's announcement doesn't make an induref2 in this Parliament any more likely in my view. It might be enough to appease the mentalist fringe though and make them think things are moving and it's not just posturing.

Agreed. There's plenty of scope for point and laugh here and that's a pretty poor effort. I enjoyed this gem :-

On the 'how could they have known these weren't fine upstanding types ' front, if you were told in 2015 that 3 SNP elected MPs of the 56 would be questioned about financial irregularities within 2 years, how many of us would have had Law, McGarry and Thomson in a top 5 guesses? A high percentage I think..