“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.”
British Politics
“The Scottish electorate, like the people of Liverpool, have voted against Conservative rule for generations now. There is absolutely no sound argument for democratic deficiencies to be remedied by a government mired in its own corruption scandals, in jurisdictions where it cannot win elections.”
Analysis: Direct Rule for Liverpool should worry Scots
The case for Scotland remaining in the Union will partly depend on the credibility of Westminster’s opposition. Can we even imagine a non-Conservative government?
Source Direct: Prince Charming
“In the 2012 agreement, both sides of the negotiation wanted a referendum. In any future agreement, only one side, Edinburgh, is likely to want it.”
Analysis: What pitfalls lie before the Draft Referendum Bill?
“Faced by the humiliation of Scottish democracy, we can choose either to hope that the Tories and the central British state will fail to press their advantage, or we can demand change in Scotland.”
David Jamieson: Tory attacks on Scottish democracy are cynical, but point to real problems
“Chillingly, body-bags for those lost to Britian’s world-beating excess mortality rate were being flogged to this Conservative dinner party set at 14 times the market rate.”
Analysis: Epic grift at the heart of the UK pandemic response has Hancock squirming
“Little to nothing hinted at in Starmer’s speech – or more concretely asserted by Conservative leaders – could even be countenanced by a new state without its own central bank or control over monetary policy. These are ideas for the wrong century, and the gulf is widening.”
Analysis: The coming UK Budget could be a blow to the austerity-mongers – and the left
“There’s no evidence so far that the contradiction between the need to win back dozens of Scottish seats and the hope that a Union Jack will somehow reconstruct the torched bridges to former Labour strongholds is causing any friction in the minds of Starmer or his immediate circle.”
David Jamieson: Starmer’s ‘national’ turn makes little sense in a fractured Union
“What should really worry us, is that the current plan for an independent Scotland would leave us in a position of supplicancy even more grovelling than those small debtor nations during the European debt crisis.”