It’s endlessly frustrating when constitutional division works to reproduce the status quo. All the more galling when the benefits accrue to such a dubious bunch. Clearly, we need some mechanism to break the vicious cycle.
Independence
It’s rather too easy to blame this on Brexit. The deeper problem is how Brexit interacted with a longstanding sense that all factions of Labour, centrist or leftist, don’t like the party’s traditional voters.
Source Direct: Agonising Labour Pains
Neil Mackay is one of Scotland’s most respected columnists – and one of the most reliably pro-Sturgeon. His scathing assessment of the SNP’s campaign therefore merits attention
Source Direct: An Independence Election?
With new focus on the EU dimension, less has been made of another bedrock of SNP policy, namely dismantling Trident. Or more specifically, how this can be reconciled with the leadership’s enthusiasm for NATO. However, even if Scotland isn’t much interested in NATO, that doesn’t stop NATO types taking an interest in Scotland.
Source Direct: NATO, Nukes and Sturgeon
I am not of the view that independence is economically impossible. But I’m also not a denier of facts. The deficit, Brexit and the pandemic are facts. And Sturgeon’s existing economic prospectus poses huge logistical problems.
Source Direct: The Economics of Feasible Independence
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
I share the anxiety that this unprecedented peacetime crisis of the British state may pass without a firm conclusion. For this reason, I have campaigned for years for an early referendum. But I am also wary of a potentially sadistic dynamic between leadership and base.
Source Direct: Indy Shoegazers
The UK Government’s budget deficit for this year will reach 19 per cent of GDP for 2020/21, according to Chancellor Rishi Sunak. It’s worth reflecting on that figure in the context of the Scottish independence debate. For years, we have been told by opponents of independence that a prospective budget deficit in an independent Scotland […]
Doubling down on the Growth Commission is a huge mistake
What unites Thatcher’s man in Scotland Sir Malcolm Rifkind and left-wing, anti-Tory firebrand Labour MSP Neil Findlay? They’re both agreed – it’s time for a federal solution to the Scottish question. In an interview yesterday, Rifkind, who was Scottish Secretary from 1986 to 1990 and was in charge of the notorious introduction of the Poll […]
Federalism is a trap we should not be lured in to
Two things are clear from the news this morning: a) there’s an election coming, and b) there’s an SNP annual conference soon. A flurry of indyref chatter always precedes these events, and this time is no different. Those of us who have seen this act play out time and time again can be forgiven for […]