Settler Watch Lynn and the Road to Devolunion

In late February or early March of 1993 a small poster appeared at the foot of Mairs Street in Portknockie on Scotland’s Moray Firth coast. This was the first of many Settler Watch posters that would be attached with wallpaper paste to suitable surfaces; mostly in Strathmore and the North-East of Scotland. Putting up these posters was a breach of the law on fly-posting; an offence which was seldom prosecuted. Settler Watch did not breach the Race Relations Act because “We aa all Bwittish” was the imperial line; at that time. Settler Watch did not breach the rules for membership of the Scottish National Party; it had been designed with the SNP’s constitution in mind. Settler Watch put pressure on a shady organisation called Siol-nan-gaidheal to take action rather than making threats. I know the above to be true because I was that SNP Brechin Branch Secretary; I stuck up that first poster.

Warning by The Colonial Office: 

The Race Relations Act has changed since 1993

          The detail from the first paragraph that is important to an understanding of a long, involved tale is the date. Settler Watch was an active, campaigning organisation in March 1993. Late in March Settler Watch made its press debut. On the 25^th March 1993 the front page of the Kirriemuir Herald carried a story about Settler Watch. Two subsequent editions (April) of this weekly newspaper published letters on the subject of Settler Watch.

          By May the empire had begun to strike back. Three imperial stooges in the South-West of Scotland founded Scottish Watch. The empire, acting through auxiliaries, had chosen to create a bogus organisation with a name that was designed to create confusion in the ranks of any potentially “webbelious” inhabitants of the rich Jockinese colony. This is a standard practice of the London Empire. Scottish Watch’s first action was to distribute leaflets at an SNP event. This was designed to provoke the leader of the SNP. A leader who was unaware that the SNP had a constitution. A leader whose loyalty to the SNP’s talk of Scottish independence needs to be questioned.

          Settler Watch had not been idle during this period. We were recruiting activists and distributing posters, sponges and tubs of wallpaper paste. We acquired an old photocopier and had it repaired by a Brechin patriot. This was a self-contained, low-budget response to the concerns that the voters of North Angus had been expressing on their doorsteps. Our activists were told that they should not target individuals and that publicly-owned items like road-signs and telegraph-poles were ideal places to stick posters. For the most part our activists were disciplined and genuinely risked their reputations to pursue the goal of re-asserting Scotland’s sovereignty.

          During March and April our recruits were usually SNP Members who had been or were members of Siol-nan-gaidheal. An Aberdeen Branch of Siol-nan-Gaidheal had fallen out with the Central Belt leadership. In defiance of the leadership they had given their entire funds to Gaelic-medium education. Siol-nan-gaidheal is probably still making hollow boasts about this modest transaction. Andy McIntosh was one of these ex-Siol Members. He was atypical as a Settler Watch activist as he was not an SNP Member. Andy McIntosh was a former territorial army (imperial) soldier who was involved in the macho (but legal) world of gun clubs.

          In March 1993 Andy McIntosh told us he had a collection of letters written to the press about the potential problems for Scotland of a colonial settlement modelled on the Irish Plantation. In those far-off days there was a time-honoured tradition of publishing the names and addresses of anyone whose letter was printed in a newspaper. Settler Watch would change that. Andy McIntosh proposed and Settler Watch accepted that he would send out starter-packs of Settler Watch posters with a covering-letter. These packs invited potential sympathisers to copy and stick up Settler Watch posters.

          It was Andy McIntosh who introduced Sonja Cameron to Settler Watch. Sonja was a recent graduate of Aberdeen University, like her friend Lynn Conway. By May Andy McIntosh had lost interest in Settler Watch’s moderate and broad-based approach. However he lent his car to Sonja and Lynn and they went out on the 2nd May to break the law on fly-posting. The two young ladies were apprehended by officers of Grampian Police. They were charged with the misdemeanour of fly-posting.

          The case was called before Stonehaven Sherriff Court on September 10^th 1993. Much had happened in the intervening months. From April until the 23rd of July there had been a complete silence in the imperial media on the subject of Settler Watch. It is reasonable to assume that this press censorship was imposed by means of a ‘D’ notice to newspaper editors. Lynn had quietly resigned from her job to spare her employer any embarrassment; Sonja continued to work as a television presenter. Persons unknown had acquired Andy McIntosh’s starter-packs and re-directed them to people who were not potential Settler Watch sympathisers.

          Stonehaven Sherriff Court found both Sonja and Lynn guilty of fly-posting. Sonja was fined £50 and the unemployed Lynn was fined £30. This is where the story becomes a little strange and the power of imperial spin trumps rational thinking.

          The imperial press unleashed a diatribe of racist abuse on Sonja. Lynn was so completely forgotten that one newspaper editor referred to her as “the other woman”. Yet in reality it was Settler Watch Lynn who should have been the big story. In May of 1993 Lynn Conway worked as a full-time Research Assistant for a prominent North-East politician. When Lynn Conway was apprehended over Settler Watch posters she worked for Alec Salmond.

          Although Alec Salmond knew nothing about Lynn’s nocturnal activities it is strange that not one editor ever mentioned his name. If the imperial power had wished to end Alec Salmond’s political career in September 1993 they had everything they needed to do so. Instead they chose to end Sonja’s career as a newsreader. If Alec Salmond had been any kind of a threat to imperial control of the rich  Jockinese colony things would have been different.

          Alec Salmond went on to lead most of the Scottish National Party into the constitutional cul-de-sac of devolunion. Alec Salmond continues to get a good press in the empire’s latest project to split the pro-independence vote. Sic a parcel o rogues in a nation.