“You can ignore certain names when they appear in the headlines and endeavour to forget about them – a prospect Blair should welcome, but obviously fears – or you can remember that when Blair speaks, he does so from atop a mountain of corpses.”
Brexit
“Strangely, the SNP leadership haven’t remembered one of the arch lessons of 2014: Project Fear can backfire disastrously.”
David Jamieson: Project Fear over Brexit is receding
“The saddest thing about attempts to batter Northern Ireland’s distinctive and prolonged traumas into a Brexit-shaped argument groove, is the implication that things would be grand if only the boat hadn’t been rocked: we should seek to maintain the present ludicrous settlement, which has seen poverty and alienation flourish.”
David Jamieson: Northern Ireland isn’t a character in your Brexit drama
There are legitimate reasons to be sceptical of Brexit, but one of the silliest claims is that isolationism stems from nostalgia for Empire or even “neo-colonialism”. This violates the first law of all political tactics, which is to know your enemy.
Source Direct: British Neo-Imperialism: Know Your Enemy
I am usually the last person to deploy terms like “unionist bias”, if only because ideological prejudices tend to be more complex than a simple yes/no binary. But this is a special case.
Source Direct: Unionist Bias & Panicked Professionals
The impact of changes to the export of seafood post-Brexit could cost £7 billion annually, and the livelihoods of many in the Scottish fishing industry.
Brexit seafood delays could cost Scottish livelihoods
The EU made the worst possible start to the coronavirus, but that phase of emergency passed and soon it was anti-establishment populists on the run. However, to say the vaccination process has been a setback would be an understatement.
Source Direct: Europe Endless
For the final Source Direct of 2020, I am fulfilling a reader request and considering a dystopian project arising from the Brexiteer faction, the Free Ports scheme announced by the UK Treasury last year. What are Free Ports and what are their implications for Scotland?
Britannia Unchained, Caledonia Unleashed
“The final consummation of Brexit will never arrive, and whatever magic it was supposed to work will not manifest, so that a real politics of independence stressing democratic rights and egalitarian reform must.”
David Jamieson: We should prepare for the never-ending Brexit story
Escalating business fears, only to play the last-ditch saviour, also means escalating ERG hopes, only to dash them. Johnson’s game of chicken is therefore bound to outrage someone.