Thread by @MartinJKeatings

Because things are never as they seem. One has to ask if this entire NS/AS situation is actually a product of the crown to pit the yes movement against each other while also trying to take out both NS and AS, which when united in 2014 were a force to be reckoned with.

I say that as someone with direct experience of the Lord Advocate - who I can genuinely say I trust less than Harold shipman doing rounds on a COVID ward.

Perfect example, the "its not for the pursuer to stand in the shoes of parliamentarian" line. That appeared in arguments written for the Scottish Government (not parliament) but remember one important thing - The lord advocate was REPRESENTING BOTH.

Now sure, the Scottish Government then withdrew and the consequence of that was that line being removed. But it bears remembering that it could have went like this:

The pleadings were confidential. The Scottish Government never thought we'd get to court so simply passed it off to the LdA. He wrote those arguments. The Scottish Government realised IT WAS going to court and panicked.

when they saw what was advanced in their name and dropped out.

I say that this COULD be the case purely on the basis that when we started the second crowdfunded and it went nuts, I put on social media saying (when we were at 30%) that I had faith in the movement and I had....

....given counsel the instruction to go for it.

What followed was a series of enquiry emails which seemed rather frantic, trying to confirm if we were going ahead.

At this point, the Scottish Government withdrew. It is reasonable to assert that they actually read the arguments and at this point were less than amused and decided the only way out was for the Scottish Government to withdraw....

...else incur the wrath of the Yes Movement for those comments because those comments would have went onto the record at the conclusion of the refinement stage.

And so they withdrew.

But suddenly, one of the other two parties leaked those arguments to the times anyway.

We always thought it was someone in the UK Government. But now, after everything that has happened of late. I am seriously starting to wonder. What if, infact, it was the Lord Advocate.

I mean the mere suggestion of political interference does more damage than actually having politically interfered.

Same thing in the whole AS affair. NS can't respond to something if that thing never comes up. It can't come up if the COPFS prevents it from coming up.

Of course as FM, NS has a situation where she is unable to go against the COPFS, a requirement of confidentiality.

You have a situation where AS cannot comment because his hands are tied and NS can't comment because there's nothing to comment on.

Meanwhile, the accusations against NS are more damaging while she can't answer them and the net consequence is two factions in the yes movement battering lumps out of each other.

And it's not like the crown of the UK hasn't done this before. Independence of India, what did they do? Inflame tensions between Muslims and Hindu's. Now we have India and Pakistan.

Ireland, inflame tensions between protestants and Catholics.

The UK has form in pitting groups of society against each other with military proficiency. They've been doing it to independence movements for hundreds of years!

I just though I would mention this because the entire focus has been NS vs AS, but the reality is that there is a third option. Collusion within the crown office to drive a wedge between two of the top independence advocates in the country.

And of course if presented properly, AS would rightly believe it was NS and NS would believe AS was out to get her. When in reality it might not be either.

And as for the crown taking social media chats etc out of context, well you only have to look what the crown tried to do last week in our case. They took tweets, omitted context and tried to advance them as fact.

As I said - I merely posit this as a potential theory, because it's not like we haven't seen it happen in the past when it comes to the crown.