There’s deep irony in the First Minister being accused of fuelling violence with words.
While all politicians get abuse on social media, it’s pretty clear that, in the main, women get far worse and, of course, face a far greater risk of that becoming real, physical.
Nicola Sturgeon has faced more than most, including a Conservative party treasurer (3 above) mocking her miscarriage. Jane Lax, joked about Nicola Sturgeon’s miscarriage on Twitter, asked “Is that when she dropped a book?” in response to another Twitter user’s claim that the first minister’s miscarriage was “fictional”. Mrs Lax, who was treasurer of the Moray Conservative Association, then posted three laughing emojis.
The FM has written about the problem for Amnesty International:
Nicola Sturgeon: A Case Study in Violence Against Women Online
What did she actually say about the Supreme Court verdict?
She called the decision “outright democracy denial” and urged her supporters to “launch a major campaign in defence of Scottish democracy“.
Much-quoted critic, Anas Sarwar said:
“From the language the first minister has been using, it has to be repeated that where she talked of being a prisoner, locked into a unitary union the Supreme Court made it clear we’re not a colony, we’re not oppressed, we do have democratic roots and structures.“
So, ‘launch a campaign‘ incites violence? Really? Ridiculous.
How about the word ‘hate?‘
Emily Thornberry happy to fuel hatred of the SNP.
Tory George Osborne revealing the dark attitudes to women developed in some private schools?
Sir Bill Cash having another go at a woman.
Boris Johnson, claiming there would be no checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea fuelling real violence with 41 police officers injured?
We could go on.
Talking-up Scotland 
Colonisers declare colony is not a colony, what a shock.
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I do apologise for the lengthy comment in advance of posting..
Frankly I suspect a great many more Labour voters will have been lost by this ludicrous rhetoric from Sarwar, he’s straying beyond the much stretched “just politics” into a minefield of his party’s construct by denying (last estimated 40% of) Labour supporters favouring independence the right to feel aggrieved over the SC outcome.
There is however a distinct whiff of Eau de Latrine (made in London) in the background – The recent announcement by the CC of potential civil unrest will have been made on foot of trusted intelligence received – Sarwar is either using this, or is part of the orchestration in ‘creating’ it, and I’m unfortunately old enough to have encountered this tactic deployed previously by state actors with media “cooperation”.
Have the MacFeegles of Pratchett’s creation made a surprise appearance in Scotland ? Nope.
Has the Labour tradition of a show of hands to signify democratic majority survives ? Ehm that depends but on independence sorry NO.
Sarwar has been so concentrated on scoring political points to impress his Da by collecting gongs that he misses the bigger picture for everybody else who is not wealthy – SARWAR’s version of Labour is NOT what Labour was ever about, “Home Rule” being one of their founding principles over a century ago.
Sooner rather than later a new “Labour” will arise in Scotland which doesn’t have a Da to impress as an objective but a people.
The British mutation of a thoroughly compromised Labour Party will die in a pauper’s grave in Scotland with an inscription “It was just politics Da, I made it, finally made it to the top of the world…”.
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Dangerous talk from Sarwar. Not only do his so called Labour party want every public service in Scotland to crumble, and soon, they also want to see ‘violence’ on our streets. It’s the sort of thing regimes and rogue countries orchestrate in other, usually very resource rich, countries, in order to bring the democratically elected government down and basically enact a coup. Does Sarwar believe he could be installed as FM of Scotland, probably.
The Brit state are very possibly plotting something, they already brought out the DUP to negatively comment on Scotland and the democratically elected FM of Scotland, so it’s clear someone wants to see some petrol bombs thrown and shops wrecked on the streets of Scotland, put nothing past the British/English state they are experts at it.
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I have written repeatedly to the Herald attempting to point out the danger of history repeating itself. Ireland had three decades of English refuseniks when they wanted Home Rule (dominion status)—-this being accompanied by a contemptible anti-Irish racist barrage from the London media.
It ultimately ended up with democratic Irish parties being swept aside for Sinn Fein and the “terrible beauty” of a civil war and decades of bombs and bullets.
Why would Scotland be different?
We have the same sneering, racist media.
We have the same double standards over democratic mandates.
We have the same problem with “England” (though some Scots are our biggest problem).
The attempted “blame game” toward Sturgeon is an awareness that political inertia morphs into violence in the political cul-de-sac that Scotland in now enclosed within by British nationalism.
“Get your retaliation in first”!
England has become somewhat dependent on vulnerable gas pipelines and electricity interconnectors from Scotland. As was seen in Ireland and the Troubles, the human toll sadly did not matter—will black-outs and cold houses matter more?
And if it was to happen, the British nationals and the colonial media could hardly say—“use the ballot box”—though I’m sure the BBC/Torygraph/Mail/Hootsmon/Herald/Supress et al would try.
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That very same Jane Lax insists on Twitter that she receives unjustified abuse from us nats. Her sympathetic ‘team’, as usual, all agree with her. Funnily enough, Jill Stephenson (Historywoman) comes away with the same nonsense. These are two women who choose words very carefully to cause maximum damage but manage to appear victimised.
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