Are you a fake Yesser?

Apparently, I'm a fake Yesser.

I'm actually a Unionist!

Actually, it's worse than that, I'm a member of something called the #77thBrigade

As someone who voted Yes in 2014 and attended numerous indy marches, tweeted and retweeted in support of independence for years, you can imagine just how shocked I was to find this out about myself.

Just goes to show, you think you know yourself, but you really don't.

To find out who you really are you need someone like @JohnCoy29071630 on Twitter to tell you.

To put this into context, I replied to this tweet by @JohnCoy29071630

"More & more I'm seeing people who say they are Supporters of the Alba Party, saying they don't want Independence now. Anyone who Is true supporter of Scottish Independence, would never act that way. Whatever their motives are Independence for Scotland Is definitely not one."

So it is clear that he is trying to smear Alba and its supporters as not true Independence supporters.

And presumably, because I have shown support for Alba and demonstrated how easy it is for a unionist to smear Alba in this way, I must also not be a true Independence supporter.

Think about that logic for a second, supporting a political party that was formed for the sole purpose of pursuing Independence makes you a unionist.

Outing the tactics used to smear Alba supporters makes me a fake Alba supporter.

How does that logic work? It's like calling black white or up down.

I can only assume he has a problem with me because I don't support SNP 1&2 and that makes me divisive according to John.

Or is it something more sinister?

If I was MI5 or 77th Brigade, what would I be trying to achieve in this election?

The first priority is obviously to stop an Independence referendum.

That requires splitting the Independence movement.

Ideally, that means I want to attack all factions within the movement at the same time and set them against each other.

So first I identify the biggest threat.

First up let's look at Nicola Sturgeon. 

She has been in power since 2014 and despite being dragged out of the EU against her will she still hasn't found a way to have a referendum despite polling reaching highs of 58% of Scotland in favour of Independence.

Next up we have Alex Salmond.

Well, he broke the Scottish Parliamentary election system once already, getting the only ever overall majority in a system designed to produce only coalition governments and to boot he actually delivered an Independence referendum and took support for Scottish Independence from low to mid 20's to 45%.

So biggest threat identified - Alex Salmond.

How do you attack both at the same time?

Simple, to decrease Alba's chances you use Twitter to undermine any confidence with the grassroots in both Alex Salmond and Alba and probably convince a few ordinary voters along the way.

True to Westminster form you use fear and lies, so the line becomes if you vote Alba we will lose our last chance for Independence, you're splitting the vote etc.

Lie about the way the election system in Scotland works, try and confuse people so they think Alba votes are wasted and get them to waste their vote on a party that can never pick up any list seats in their own region.

You know a percentage of Independence supporters will inevitably vote for Alba and there is nothing you can do about that, but perhaps you can put them off voting for the SNP.

Historically you know Trump's success was built on disincentivising whole communities of mainly black and ethnic voters.

How can you apply that lesson to the Independence movement?

Well, the chances of the SNP winning the majority they claim will force a section 30 is already low due to the electoral system, but for good measure, you use the attacks on Alba and Alex Salmond to insult and bully real Independence supporters, whilst at the same time pledging your dying loyalty to Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.

Real Independence supporter now don't want to be associated with you and if you are seen as representative of the majority of SNP voters, they are put off voting SNP.

Press some other buttons, push unpopular SNP policies like gender reform.

Have your Twitter army show support for these policies as well to make it look like they are representative of the leaderships views.

Bully some more, call ordinary members with concerns over female-only spaces transphobes.

Call them Alt-Nats, compare them to Trump or Brexit supporters, despite the fact that this description would be far more appropriately applied to your own fake Yesser accounts and your own underhand tactics.

Promote the Greens as the alternative indy vote to split the list vote even more, knowing that any votes that the Greens get can be discounted and called in to question as ecological votes and not Independence votes.

Back up all these efforts with a regular drip-feed of stories in the mainstream media for them to tweet about and present as absolute authoritative proof to reinforce the lies and smears, with no sense of irony and totally oblivious to unionist bias in the MSM.

Have lots of these fake accounts putting out the same messages, repeat, rinse, brainwash.

It is psychological warfare.

Does this seem far fetched?

Well, it's nothing compared to the idea that I am a fake Yesser and a member of the 77th Brigade.

@JohnCoy29071630 is one of many Twitter accounts.

He may or may not be a fake Yesser.

He may or may not be a member of the 77th Brigade.

There may be other reasons for his hatred of all things Alba.

But unlike John, I would never go about accusing people of deception without any evidence.