Articles by Mark Devlin

First, a huge thank you. The Abolish Holyrood campaign has taken off because of your support. We’ve gained over 3,000 Twitter followers, been featured in the press, and turned #AbolishHolyrood into one of the most talked-about hashtags in Scotland. Together, we’ve shown that the demand to end this failed parliament is real—and it’s growing. However, die to two important issues, it is not possible to continue to register a political party for 2026 at this time.

Today, The Majority, with the support of donors who contributed to its crowdfunding campaign, launches the STOP WASTING OUR TIME & MONEY, BIN YOUR PRETENDYREF campaign to coincide with oral arguments at The Supreme Court by the Scottish Government, which has asked the Court to assess the legality of an advisory referendum on Scottish independence. The campaign includes digital billboards in Glasgow, and Edinburgh (locations in appendix).

The billboards also have a link to a new crowdfunding campaign, to fund further anti-PretendyRef billboards:

Scotland's No. 1 Anti-Nationalist show

Hosted by Mark Devlin, David Griffiths and Mary Devlin, The Majority Show (formerly The Majority Podcast) is Scotland's No. 1 anti-Nationalist politics show. We broadcast LIVE to hundreds of simultaneous viewers EVERY WEDNESDAY at 7PM, across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The show is then watched by thousands more on-demand during the week.

We love your comments, please tune in live to add them and they may be selected for the show!

UPDATE: Our billboard campaign has been delayed. Apparently, the billboard company have a new policy that means direct criticism of political parties is not allowed (despite that being fine last year). We're submitting redesigned ads now.

UPDATE 2: We changed to a different company and the ads are now running, without any text changes

Today, The Majority, with the support of donors who contributed to its crowdfunding campaign, launches the SNP COUNCILS ARE RUBBISH #BinTheSNP campaign for the upcoming  Scottish Council Elections on May 5. The campaign includes digital billboards in Glasgow, Edinburgh and, Aberdeen (see locations/dates below).

This is a topic that many of you don't want to hear. But, as committed as we are to destroying nationalist delusions, we must also assess anti-nationalist delusions as well, of which the main one is that the only strategy to beat the SNP is a Labour-Tory alliance.

Not only is an alliance not going to happen, Labour’s strategy of not forming an alliance with the Scottish Tories is correct. This also means that recent attacks on Tories by Labour are also correct.

Normally, I wouldn’t write a whole article on some internet rando, but in a video posted on March 3, Gordon Ross, a driving instructor from Partick, who styles himself with the bad pun ‘Inde-car guy’ (on Twitter as @PartickDriver), claimed that he has been given the answers to how the SNP will conduct its second referendum campaign, directly from Mike Russell, the party’s President and former ‘Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs’.

This is a story of three artists, all leaders in their fields: an actor, a musician and an author. They are known, not just for their world-leading skills, but for their authenticity. These working-class men have developed and promoted their talents to the top of their fields and have gained as much respect from the quality of their work as from their uncompromising attitude to their craft. No-one can say that their work, and attitude to it, is not authentic.

Today, The Majority, with the support of almost 600 donors who raised £14,500 for their Let’s Put Up Billboards! crowdfunding campaign, launches its final elections campaign, before the Scottish Elections on May 6. 

After a hugely successful campaign that flew a #ResignSturgeon banner over Holyrood, and took ‘We Don't Believe You NIcola’ ad vans to the Scotttish Parliament, The Majority now takes the fight directly to the Scottish people, via billboards and mobile digital ad vans carrying a message highlighting 14 Years of SNP failure and promoting tactical voting:

Today, The Majority, with the support of Scotland Matters, UK Union Voice and over 250 donors who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign, launches the #ResignSturgeon campaign, the first in a series of campaigns leading up to the Scottish Elections on May 6. The campaign starts with:

• Three digital billboards
  • Glasgow - Clydeside Expressway (access near Lidl on Castlebank St)
  • Edinburgh - Slateford Road (next to Jewson)
  • Aberdeen - Market Street (at Union Square)
    
• A #ResignSturgeon banner towed behind an aeroplane flying over:
  •  The Scottish Parliament Building in Holyrood and Edinburgh City Centre
    (Friday, 5th March: 12:45- 1:30pm)
  • Glasgow City Centre and Finnieston Crane area
    (Friday, 5th March: 3pm-4pm) weather permitting

The campaign is a message to Nicola Sturgeon to take responsibility for her Government’s catastrophic handling of the Alex Salmond Harassment Inquiry, which cost the taxpayer well over £500,000 in damages to Salmond plus hundreds of thousands of pounds more in Scottish Government legal fees, as well as the cost of the ongoing inquiry.

Hi, welcome to my review of The Majority's highlights of 2020, AKA The year of staying at home and arguing with people on the internet.

In May, after seeing the frustration and anger of NO voters, as the SNP continued to defy the 2014 referendum result and the lack of effective opposition, I decided to start The Majority.

I contacted Ian Lakin (@HighlandChief) through Twitter, to ask advice on my plan to create a new anti-Nationalist media. To my surprise and everlasting gratitude, he gave me a donation to get started. Soon after, I started The Majority Twitter account and was again surprised when Maureen Johnson (@Maureen6Johnson) tweeted in support.

The SNP are a MINORITY party that wins because the anti-Nationalist opposition vote is split three ways. Of the 73 constituency seats in the Scottish Parliament Elections, 59 are currently held by the SNP. That’s an astonishing 81% of seats from just 46.5% of the vote. 

Talk about not getting the government you vote for!

But how will tactical voting help? First we need to discard the two sets of seats where tactical voting won't make a difference. The first set is the 28 seats where the combined anti-Nationalist vote is still less than the SNP vote. Even if 100% of the anti-Nationalist vote swung to the second-place candidate, the seat would still remain in the hands of the SNP. In these seats the priority must be to increase the anti-Nationalist vote share.

Once thing is certain: the polls were wrong, again. There was no Blue Wave. There was no Biden landslide. Despite being a 'racist', Trump increased his vote among Latinos and Blacks.

One would think that the media would know better by now. In 2016, The New York Times' favourite pollster, Nate Silver, famously predicted that there was only an 8% chance of Trump winning. It was in the bag for Clinton.

Imagine two salespeople at your door. One sells apples, the other oranges. Both fruits cost the same.

The apple salesperson says, ‘Buy this apple, it’s tasty!’. The orange salesperson, worried at this simple message, tries a different approach, ‘You like apples? This orange is just like an apple’. 

Which one are you most likely to choose?

If the orange salesperson doesn’t believe in their product, why should we? There are many selling strategies, but dissing your own product never works. The customer says, "I was actually thinking of buying an orange until told me it’s not as good as an apple, so I’ll just take that."

Most of us have seen the Mitchell and Webb sketch, where a Nazi officer, worried about the skulls on his cap, ends up asking his fellow Nazi officer:

Are we the baddies?

The sketch strikes home because everyone thinks they are a good person, doing good things for good reasons. But sometimes even good people can find themselves doing bad things for bad reasons. Sometimes they can even be its cheerleaders. Until they start to question...

Richard Leonard, Scottish Labour’s leader, has now been in the job for three years, during which time he has presided over multiple election defeats. In the European elections in May 2019, the party slumped to fifth in Scotland, polling less than 10% of the vote. The party then fell from seven seats to one in November’s General Election.

A YouGov poll for The Times puts support for Labour at 14 per cent in Holyrood’s constituency and list vote. And 53 percent of voters could not recognise Mr Leonard.

This morning, like many parents in Scotland, I was up early for results day. A few minutes after 8am, my daughter appeared to relay the news. But, something didn’t seem right. Instead of As, two of her results, for Physics and Computing Science, were Bs.

My mind went back to her last parent-teacher conference, just as the Coronavirus crisis was starting. Her Computing Science teacher was effusive in praise. ‘I’ll be recommending an A,’ he said.

This article was written on September 11, 2014, a few days before the Scottish Independence Referendum. It is just one of many possible pasts or futures. Let me know what you think would have happened in the comments.

On September 18, 2014, Scotland votes 'yes' to independence by 51%. Independence supporters claimed they wanted a more democratic system, but now 49% of the country is living under a system they don't want.

The video above has been viewed over 40,000 times on social media.

Hi I’m Mark Devlin,

We’ve all seen the hideous scenes at the English border where a group of flag-waving Scottish Nationalists,  thought it would be fun to tell English people coming to Scotland to f-ck off. 

But, really, why should we be surprised when Nicola Sturgeon openly talks about closing the border to the English? Why would we think her followers wouldn’t take action?

To my fellow anti-Nationalists: With the deepest of respect, you're doing it wrong.

Every day, I see people arguing on Twitter, trying to counter Nationalist arguments. One thread I've been following on Twitter has literally hundreds of responses trying to convince Nationalists that they are wrong about Scotland’s finances. Of course the Nationalists are wrong. 

But has all that discussion done any good? No. Has anyone been converted? No. Has it taken the fight back to them? Rarely. Has a lot of time been wasted. Yes.

Stephen Daisley, writing on his blog, says that frustration is rising as Scottish Nationalists fail to deliver results after 13 years in power.

Three terms of Nationalist rule have produced little of substance and on education and health we have seen progress stall and even go into reverse. Meanwhile, sizeable reserves of political capital, parliamentary time and government resources have gone into a constitutional war of attrition. What exactly about the past 13 years would make anyone want another five?

Yesterday, I was talking to a female ex-Labour supporter, and new Nationalist. While claiming she was 'for social justice', she said that she was all for anyone being Scottish, except for JK Rowling. When I asked why, she told me that Rowling should be excluded because of her political views.

Whatever you think of Ms Rowling, or transgender activism, this woman, who presumably thinks she is a decent person, told me straight up that someone with a different political opinion from her has no place in Scotland.

In modern-day Scotland, we see:

• A country unnecessarily divided as Nationalist leaders promote division to boost their own power 
• Our friends and neighbours entranced by ugly Nationalism and influenced daily by dishonest propaganda churned out by the Nationalist establishment
• Politicians who always put their immature dreams above the welfare of the people
• A looming one-party state where unsuitable and incompetent people are promoted based on party loyalty
• An ineffective and divided opposition
• Leaders who casually dismiss the vote of the majority

And we see the silent majority of Scots cowed into silence and ignored by the government and the media.

One of the main techniques extremist groups like Nationalists use to make themselves appear normal is to label their opponents something they would like them to be and then attack that label.

By labelling their opponents as “Unionists” or “Yoons” they associate them with Union Jacks, British bulldogs, Churchill, and The Queen.

(Of course the Union that the Nationalists almost always imagine is English — they never include Northern Ireland or Wales, or the Scottish people who are part of Britain.)