“A low tax regime and de-regulation are the preferred models of attracting foreign investment, and the Scottish Government is certainly exploring just such incentives.”
European Union
“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
Just months after Brexit proper, the European Union may be facing its biggest existential crisis since the darkest days of Eurozone austerity.
Source Direct: Europe’s Trumpian Moment?
“Taking swipes at democratic social movements, like the one in Catalonia, or Syriza’s drive to resist EU-backed austerity measures, are some of the only decisive action ever taken by the European Parliament.”
David Jamieson: The EU is helping Spain crush democracy in Catalonia
“The Tories will no doubt use the victory of state planned and universal healthcare to venerate Britishness. We can instead insist on the value of collective security and care in a destabilising world.”
Analysis: EU vaccine chaos shows planning is the future
Catalonia’s election – and ours in May – could begin a new conversation. For decades, Western states have suffered from democratic malaise (Britain is merely an extreme case). . Challenges for popular control of state power thus assume critical importance.
Source Direct: Catalonia Dreaming
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
“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.”
David Jamieson: The Irish debacle is proof of EU contempt for small nations
As Nicola Sturgeon addresses Holyrood on the future of lockdowns, questions arise concerning Scotland’s wider relationships to the UK and the European Union.