[SCOT goes POP!] No, Nicola Sturgeon, direct conflict between NATO forces and Russia must not be "considered"

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No, Nicola Sturgeon, direct conflict between NATO forces and Russia must not be "considered"

In spite of the well known preoccupations of the SNP's wholly unsuitable defence/foreign affairs team at Westminster, I wouldn't have faulted the Scottish Government's response to the Ukraine crisis until today.  However, I see that Nicola Sturgeon has given an interview in which she says that, although she understands the case against a no-fly zone, "all of these things must be considered".  That, astoundingly, means she's more hawkish on NATO military intervention than Boris Johnson and the Tory government.

Let's be clear about what a no-fly zone would actually mean.  It would mean direct war between NATO and Russia.  If Russia attempted to fly over Ukraine, NATO would attempt to shoot the Russian planes down.  I know some will argue that's not genuine war, but was the Battle of Britain not genuine war simply because it was confined to the air?  Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, and NATO is a nuclear weapons alliance - something the SNP have long objected to, because they understood the appalling risks of nuclear states coming into direct conflict with each other.  Now, it appears, the SNP leadership are not merely willing to countenance those risks, but are actively prodding the UK government and others to throw caution to the wind. What is happening to the party we thought we knew?

This, to put it mildly, is not a game.  The future of human civilisation is at stake.  We could literally all be dead within weeks if a strategic miscalculation is made.  You don't provide humanitarian relief to the people of Ukraine by turning their country into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  Nicola Sturgeon may not hold any direct power to make these decisions, but she does possess a measure of 'soft power', and people with that kind of power contribute to a climate of ideas that can prepare the ground for a change in policy.  I would urge any SNP members reading this to contact their parliamentary representatives and try to re-instill some common sense into the Scottish Government's pronouncements before it's too late.

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FitzyFan asked yesterday if I could provide more analysis of last week's Savanta ComRes poll on independence.  I'm afraid I can't, because there's still no sign of the data tables.  I don't even know what the fieldwork dates were, and that's the most crucial point of all - were they before or after the invasion started?

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Source: No, Nicola Sturgeon, direct conflict between NATO forces and Russia must not be "considered"