THE UNIONISTS REACTED TO THE NEWS OF INDYREF 2 WITH WHITE FACED ANGER. NO WONDER. THEY KNOW THEY ARE STARING DEFEAT IN THE FACE.

So that's it guys. The time of 'will she, won't she?' is done and dusted. She has. IndyRef 2 is no longer an 'if'. As of yesterday it became a 'when'. 

In the wake of Nicola dropping her bombshell, the airwaves were filled with shouty people from England telling us how we really, really don't want a second independence referendum. It seems London once again knows best. What could the SNP possibly know about the way the Scots feel? 

I am pretty sure most of my fellow travelers on the 'Yes' side of the argument will have been punching the air with relief. Is this the ideal time to fire the starting gun? No, of course it isn't. In an ideal world we would have waited for a year's worth of polls showing a 60% plus majority for our independence. But the world of 2017 is a long, long way from being ideal. The big worry was always the 2021 Scottish Elections and the 'Yes' side losing a majority in Holyrood. And then what? Who knows. A bird in the hand is a hundred percent better than a bird in the bush. Right now we have the ability to take our chances. Of course Indyref 2 isn't about to be any kind of slam dunk, but now is a whole lot better than never.

Yesterday we were treated to a preview of the Unionist line which will become horribly familiar over the coming months. The Scottish people don't want this..... the last referendum was horribly divisive.... you're economy is a joke .... your schools are a joke... your hospitals are a joke .... your parliament is a joke... you're a joke.....

The British economy is a magnificent rolling juggernaut. 

The Scottish economy makes Zimbabwe look like Finland.

They never learn do they? They could have taken the news with dignity, respect and class. Now that would have been a bit of a problem. But they didn't. They were no more able to resist being condescending than a crack addict is able to resist the next pipe. 

Theresa May had the chance to take the news with a bit of statesmanship. It was her big opportunity to look the people of Scotland in the eye and start to punt a positive view of our treasured Union. Instead she did what she now seems to do all the time. She pandered to the Daily Mail.

She sneered and did her mocking headmistress act. Big mistake lady.

Of course the sneering was as predictable as winter snow falling on Moscow. What was rather more interesting was the white faced anger most of them completely failed to hide. Wow, were they ever raging. 

David Mundell was hopping about like a man who had spilled a mug of boiling coffee in his crotch. He was absolutely beside himself. This was probably quite understandable. As Secretary Of State for Scotland he was supposed to be the Tory with a finger on the pulse of the Northern Province. Had he been telling his Prime Minister not to worry, it was all an SNP bluff? And were his ears still on fire from the screaming angry phone call from Number 10 he had just endured? 

You useless, worthless, pathetic piece of shit!!! You said she would never do it! Christ I wish I could fire you..........

And of course David knows he is in for a pretty grim couple of years as the main man in the firing line. And when the Union falls apart after 300 years, his career will be deader than dead. There will be no knighthood and nice cosey seat in the House of Lords for Scotland's last Westminster Tory. He's about to be the fall guy and yesterday you could see it in his eyes.

Theresa May's face also said it all. The anger was in danger of morphing into full on hate. Is this so very surprising? Of course it isn't. Nicola's bombshell was the Prime Minister's worst nightmare for a whole bunch of reasons, none of which she could mention.

Behind the arrogance and the bluster, there must be blind terror in the corridors of Whitehall. The Brexit negotiations look doomed before they start. The EU 27 are going to play hardball over the divorce payments and Theresa May knows she will be between a rock and a hard place from day one. The EU negotiators will demand their pound of flesh and the Daily Mail will do all they can to make sure Britain doesn't pay it. No wonder there is already plenty of talk about the UK throwing a tantrum and storming out of the talks before they really get started.

May knows she has barely a decent card in the hand she is about to play. The shadowy money men who prop up the cardboard cut out party she leads will have already laid down the law. Only one thing matters and only one.

The beloved City of London.

She will be expected to trade everything in exchange for business as usual in the City. Well yesterday Nicola wrenched a few of those cards from her hand. No wonder the Tories decided to grab control of post Brexit fishing and farming policy. Once again these key chunks of the Scottish economy were about to be sacrificed in exchange for business as usual for the City.

Well it ain't so easy now. She might try to buy off the Spaniards with promises of Scottish fish, but her empty offer will be met with mocking laughter. It's not yours to give lady. And if she is seen trying to  sell out Scotland to look after London banks, she will make Independence a near certainty.

Then of course there is the border nightmare. Ever since the Brexit vote, the party line on the Irish border has been problem, what problem! Of course there won't be a problem. The border will remain as open as open can be. Just like the border between Gibraltar and Spain will remain as open as open can be. So how on earth can they say the borders between the UK and EU Ireland and Spain will be wide open but the border between EU Scotland and the UK will be like the Berlin Wall? Well she might try to say it but it won't hold any water.

Another high card is supposed to be the European need for the comfort blanket of the British military in the scary new world of the Donald. All of a sudden throwing the Trident card onto the table won't look so very convincing when their beloved missiles are about to made homeless.

It is about to get a whole lot harder to keep peddling the line about how miraculously great the British economy is, Brexit or no Brexit. A few pesky economists will start to look at what the much vaunted British economy will look like once it loses all of those Scottish exports. All that whisky and oil and beef and timber and fish and...

We may be pathetic and poor, but we export and whole lot more than we import and once Scotland is removed from the equation the economy of the Rest of the UK starts to look like a bit of a basket case. 

Here's a comparison which is guaranteed to piss off the Unionists, not that they are remotely likely to read this. 

1942. Hitler has taken the gamble to end all gambles and invaded the Soviet Union. His beloved 6th Army has reached Stalingrad and the Generals tell him the best option is to by pass the city and keep blitzkrieging their way to the oilfields. Instead Der Fuhrer can't resist a the chance for a toe to toe slugfest. And of course it all ended in tears. The 6th Army was doomed from the get go. They were totally reliant on supplies coming in along hundreds of miles of rail tracks. And every mile of this over stretched supply line was vulnerable to attacks from the partisans who were hiding out in the forests. Stalin had no such problems. His supply line from the factories he had shifted east were just as long, but there were no partisans to blow up the trains. In the end the 6th Army ran out of bullets and food and warm clothes. 

Well, the hard Brexiteers have chosen their very own Stalingrad with the same blind arrogance Hitler showed seventy years ago. And yesterday they had their first supply train blown up. We are the partisans and they know only too well they don't have the spare troops they need to deal with us. Instead they will pour everything into the Stalingrad of the Brexit negotiations whilst we wreak havoc behind the lines.

No wonder Mundell looked like he was ready to throw up. No wonder Theresa May looked like a woman who was dreaming of sending one of her treasured nukes to Edinburgh. 

The nightmare just got serious. After four hundred years, the sun is about to finally set on the British Empire. One by one the jewels in the Crown have slipped from London's grasp. First it was America. Then India. Then Hong Kong. And now the very last colony is about to fly the nest. 

And being angry won't be enough to make it stop. Hitler was angry every time some poor sod brought him the news that another train loaded up with new tanks had been blown to bits in the back end of the Ukranian nowhere. 

So he ranted and screamed until the spittle ran down his chin and onto his jacket.

And then he lost.

It is 310 years since we were bought and sold for English gold. I think it is high time for us to join all the other countries of the world to have walked away from London rule.

Don't you?

Yesterday Nicola added her name to a long and distinguished list - George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, David Ben Gurion, Kwame Nkrumah, Jomo Kenyatta, Eamon De Valera and many, many others. London was every bit as angry at each and every one of those men as they are with Nicola now. London mocked them and threatened them and rubbished them. And it made not a jot of difference to the remorseless march of history.

Where better to finish this particular blog than with the magical words of Mahatma Gandi.

'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you then you win'

Too bloody right we will.