Don't cringe! Be a Republic! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇹🥕

Scottish normalist: citizens of a country choosing their government is normal. Occasional baby birds. Won't wheest for anyone. No Covidiots. Pronouns: hee/haw

[Anthony Rose @anthonyrose]

The UK government is on a deranged mission to install spyware on your phone and control your internet activities. But it's destined to fail. Here's why.

The problem is that what the UK government is asking phone operating system providers to do is illegal in other countries. That gives the phone manufacturers a huge problem. How do they know it's a UK phone with absolute certainty? After all, if they install UK spyware on a US phone and start reporting US phone activity to Ofcom, it's jail for them in the US.

Most articles talking about the Online Safety Act being such an abomination focus on the surveillance and control aspects, but nobody is talking about how it will be implemented. So let's do that.

In order to determine that it's a “UK” phone, there are a few ways to go:
1. Decide based on the country the phone was purchased in.
2. Decide based on the user's IP address.
3. Decide based on the app store country.

Option 1 doesn't work because everyone will just order their phone from Amazon US. Apple may as well close up shop in the UK.

Option 2 doesn't work because what if an American or Chinese tourist comes to the UK – do they have spyware installed on their phone when they step off the plane in Heathrow? How will the spyware be uninstalled later? When word gets out, tourism to the UK will drop to zero.

Option 3 sounds like an easy way to go. To show how effective that's going to be, I saved Apple some time and made a mock-up of the warning messages they would show before they installed spyware on your phone.

This plan by the government is going to drown in implementation details and fail dismally. Every government minister involved in this needs to understand that and bail out now, because it's only going to get more embarrassing for them as time goes on.

@jimmy_wales @prestonjbyrne @SpeechUnion @nym @HarryStebbings @freddienew @KanishkaNarayan

[Trina @hightreebud]

@EHRCScotland The situation in prisons was known at least 8 years ago, and reported to the EHRC numerous times. Women wouldn't have had to pursue expensive legal action if your enforcement powers had been used to hold Scotgov to account. There's still much to be done, will you step up?

[Nick Wallis @nickwallis]

Here's my write up of the FWS v Scottish Ministers JR outcome. Grateful to Trina, Susan and Marion for giving me some great quotes. Got a line from Scottish Prison Service in - still waiting on Scottish EHRC and govt.

Victory For Women Scotland:

https://t.co/k0Ob3OeoF7

[Scottish Express @ScotExpress]

JK Rowling offers to bank roll class-action lawsuit against SNP Government over 'unlawful' prison policy https://t.co/el8w6QGn7I

[David Henry @DavidDhenry]

An interesting fact I uncovered recently. When @TasminaSheikh was defending herself at a Solicitors tribunal she was represented by none other than Dorothy Bain QC. Small world isn't it. Dorothy now KC has been the Lord Advocate during the Peter Murrell embezzlement case and sat in SNP cabinet meetings with Nicola Sturgeon.

[cavakaggyreborn @cavakaggyreborn]

A clip of a UK Refugee Council using girls as young as 12 years old to encourage migrant men to come to the United Kingdom is resurfacing amid the release of the grooming gang inquiry report. The report showed that 250,000 white British girls were raped by Muslim migrants. Perfect showcase of women’s suicidal empathy.
This is utterly disgraceful.
These men need to be punished

[Ocean Breath Cafe @OceanbreathCafe]

I was a prison inspector in the Scottish prison system and witnessed the extreme distress of women. Plus their intense rage about being forced to lie about the fact that the system was letting any man into the female estate just by declaring the magic words “I am a woman”

[Akua Reindorf KC @akuareindorf]

This is what happens when politicians appear to condone the practice of ignoring legal judgments whilst "awaiting guidance", "carefully considering the ruling", "undertaking a review" and so on. The rule of law breaks down.

[Lisa Mackenzie @lnmackenzie1]

Confirmation that @scottishprisons intends to continue to break the law

[Mia Hughes @_CryMiaRiver]

The UK’s puberty blocker trial is a textbook example of what Dr. Harriet Hall called Tooth Fairy Science: research conducted on a phenomenon without ever questioning whether the phenomenon exists.

Hall explained that researchers could collect data that are reproducible and statistically significant on how much money the Tooth Fairy leaves, which coins she prefers, whether she pays more for molars, or when the child leaves a note — but without asking whether the Tooth Fairy exists, the entire endeavour is meaningless.

Over the next three years and beyond, the NHS will medicalise “trans kids” and meticulously gather data on bone density, the psychological effects of puberty suppression, and body-image satisfaction.

But all the results will be meaningless because they’re studying something that doesn’t exist.

Ethical research would begin at the same place, with the young person’s adoption of a transgender identity and the diagnosis of “gender incongruence,” but it would travel in the opposite direction.

Instead of accepting a culturally-influenced identity as a condition in need of medical treatment, meaningful research would investigate what ordinary developmental struggles are being misread by so many young people growing up in this era saturated with the messaging of trans activism.

It would investigate which cultural messages are disrupting identity formation and distorting the adolescent’s sense of self, driving the widespread adoption of this fashionable identity.

Studying "trans kids" and "children with gender incongruence" is as pointless as studying the Tooth Fairy.

[Lucy Hunter Blackburn @LucyHunterB]

Yesterday, the Scottish Government lost a case expensively defending, yet again, a policy it was talked into by a third sector organisation it has propped up for years.

3 days before, there was a SG-led debate on the relationship between the third sector and the government

🧵

[Joanna Cherry KC @joannaccherry]

It won’t though because lesbians who don’t pander to men pretending to be lesbians aren’t welcome. So it’s not inclusive at all.

[Don't cringe! Be a Republic! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇹🥕 @narrowshoulders]

https://t.co/6IN4026Y1r

[Lucy Dunn @lucyidunn]

🔴 NEW: The Scottish Affairs Committee is asking for more details on Peter Murrell’s embezzlement of SNP funds, in a letter to the Electoral Commission & the Clerk of the House

- Chair Patricia Ferguson is asking the Electoral Commission to set out the funding provided to the SNP over the time Murrell was found to have been embezzling funds

- She notes speculation that EC policy development grants could have been misused, though the EC has said it found no proof these funds were misused

- Asking EC to explain how it would use its powers safeguard public money – and whether existing safeguards are enough

- Writes to Clerk of the House for information on short money and the guaranteeing of its proper use, including what evidence is provided alongside an auditor certificate to show the funds have been used properly

- Asking for total amount of short money allocated to SNP over Murrell’s period of offending and whether Clerk has ever had grounds for concern over the use of this money

[Scottish Express @ScotExpress]

Major development in Peter Murrell scandal as Scottish Affairs Committee takes action https://t.co/fNpknA5di0

[Liberation Scotland Committee @LiberationScot]

Please share this video.

Alyn Smith of the SNP, whose achievements for the cause of independence go before him, says he doesn't see anything useful coming out of Scotland's acute constitutional bind being openly discussed by members of the United Nations C-24 Decolonization Committee.

The only useful tactic Mr Smith sees is to parrot ad nauseam a request for the colonizer to decolonize us, even after it has twice in the last four months slammed the door in the Scottish Government's face.

Does anyone any longer see Mr Smith's strategy of the ostrich as a viable road to independence?

[S A M M Y Woodhouse @officialsammyuk]

Due to the Sentencing Act 2026, Arshid Hussain – the man who abducted and raped me as a child, and who did the same to dozens of other children – is being considered for early release. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison in early 2017 and was described as one of the most dangerous men in the UK. He was later convicted of further offences.

His brother, Basharat Hussain, is also being considered for release.

I honestly can’t put into words how disgusted I am with the British government.

[Don't cringe! Be a Republic! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇹🥕 @narrowshoulders]

@myhiddenvalue Wrong, it is already legal. Starmer has just blocked a private members bill to make it illegal.

[Andy Wightman @andywightman]

The Scottish Parliament Bureau has no authority, powers or role in determine how journalists accredited to Parliament operate in the Parliamentary state. If this BBC report is accurate, then there had been a wholly inappropriate and invalid exercise of political power (Bureau is a political body) over the rights and privileges of the media.

[Christian Concern @CConcern]

🚨1/6 BREAKING: Victory for free speech.

Christian artist Victoria Culf has secured a legal settlement with Watford Borough Council after she was removed from her own exhibition and reported to police for expressing concerns about gender transition for children and puberty blockers.

After the ban, Victoria was reported for a 'hate crime' and lived in fear that there would be a knock at her door and she would be arrested in front of her children.

Supported by the Christian Legal Centre from the beginning of her ordeal, Victoria has not only secured the settlement, but the council has confirmed its commitment to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and expression and has agreed to work with her again saying it holds her in 'high regard.'

See more in this thread🧵and on our website

https://t.co/YzfX8m3zUC